The personal history and experience of David Copperfield

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THE PERSONAL HISTORY * *
AND EXPERIENCE OF ** * * *
DAVID COPPERFIELD * * ** *

By CHARLES DICKENS

Author of "BARNABY RUDGE," " BLEAK HOUSE,"
WA CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND," " DOMBEY
AND SON," " MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT," " THE PICK-
WICK PAPERS," " A TALE OF TWO CITIES," ate,

A. L, BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
52^58 DUANE STREET, NEW YORK jfi

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. I am Born 1

II. I Observe 13

III. I have a Change, 28

IV. I Fall into Disgrace, 43

V. I am Sent Away from Home, . ... 03

YI. I Enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance, ... 81

VII. My " First Half" at Salem House, ... 89

VIII. My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon. 107

IX. I have a Memorable Birthday 122

X. I become Neglected, and am Provided for, . . 134

XI. I begin Life on my Own Account, and don't Like it. 154
XII. Liking Life on my Own Account no Better, I

Form a Great Resolution, ..... 170

XIII. The Sequel of my Resolution 179

XIV. My Aunt makes up her Mind about me, . . 199
XV. I make another Beginning, 215

XVI. I am a New Boy in more Senses than One, . . 225

XVII. Somebody Turns Up, 247

XVIII. A Retrospect, 265

XIX. I Look about me, and Make a Discovery, . . 272

XX.- Steerforth's Home, 289

XXI. Little Em'ly, 298

XXII. Some Old Scenes, and Some New People, . . 318

XXIII. I Corroborate Mr. Dick, and Choose a Profession. 340

XXIV. My First Dissipation 355

XXV. Good and Bad Angels 364

XXVI. I Fall into Captivity, 383

XXVII. Tommy Traddles .'399

XXVIII. Mr. Micawber's Gauntlet, 409

XXIX I Visit Steerforth at his Home, again, . . .429

XXX. A Loss 437

XXXI A Greater Loss 445

XXXII. The Beginning of a Long Journey, . . . 454

IV

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

PAGE

XXXIII. Blissful,

473

XXXIV. My Aunt Astonishes me,

490

XXXV. Depression, . '

499

XXXVI. Enthusiasm, .

. 519

XXXVII. A Little Cold Water,

. 537

XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership,

. 545

XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep,

562

XL. The Wanderer,

. 582

XLI. Dora's Aunts,

590

XLII. Mischief,

607

XLIII. Another Retrospect,

. 627

XLIV. Our Housekeeping,

. 635

XLV. Mr. Dick fulfils my Aunt's Predictions

. 650

XLVI. Intelligence, .

666

XLVII. Martha,

. 680

XLVHI. Domestic,

. 691

XLIX. I am Involved in Mystery,

. 703

L. Mr. Peggotty's Dream comes True,

. 715

LI. The Beginning of a Longer Journey,

. 725

LII. I Assist at an Explosion,

. 743

LIII. Another Retrospect,

. 767

LIV. Mr. Micawber's Transactions.,

. 772

LV. Tempest,

. 788

LVI. The New Wound, and the Old,

. 799

LVH. The Emigrants,

. 806

LVIH. Absence, .

. 817

LIX. Return, .

. 823

LX. Agnes,

. 840

LXI. I am Shown Two Interesting Penitents

i, . 849

LXII. A Light Shines on my Way, .

. 861

•jXIII. A Visitor,

. 870

ajXJY. A Last Retrospect,

«78

THE

PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

OF

DAVID COPPEKFIELD THE YOUNGER

CHAPTER L

i AM BORN.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life,
or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these
pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of
my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed
*nd believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It
was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began
to cry, simultaneously.

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was
declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the
neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me sev-
eral months before there was any possibility of our becom-
ing personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be
unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see
ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching,
as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender,
born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

I need say nothing here, on the first head, because noth-
ing can show better than my history whether that prediction
was verified or falsified by the result. On the second
branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless L
ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a
baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all com-
plain of having been kept out of this property; and it any-

1 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

body else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is
heartily welcome to keep it.

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale,
in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas.
Whether sea-going people were short of money about that
time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I
don't Know ; all I know is, that there was but one solitary
bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the
bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and
the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from
drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the adver-
tisement was withdrawn at a dead loss— for as to sherry,
my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then
— and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle
down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-
a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was
present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncom-
fortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed
of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old
lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced
from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and
twopence halfpenny short — as it took an immense time and
a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect
to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered
as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but
died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have under-
stood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast that she
never had been on the water in her life, except upon a
bridge ; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely
partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the
impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption
to go "meandering" about the world. It was in vain to
represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps in-
cluded, resulted from this objectionable practice. She
always returned, with greater emphasis and with an in-
stinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, " Let
us have no meandering."

Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my
birth.

I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or "thereby," as
they say in Scotland. 1 was a posthumous child. My
father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six
months, when mine opened on it. There is something

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 3

strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never
saw me ; and something stranger yet in the shadowy re-
membrance that I have of my first childish associations
with his white gravestone in the churchyard, and of the
indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone
there in the dark night, when our little parlour was warm
and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house
were — almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes— bolted
and locked against it.

An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt
of mine, of whom I shall have more to relate by and by,
was the principal magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood,
or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called her, when
she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable per-
sonage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been
married to a husband younger than herself, who was very
handsome, except in the sense of the homely adage, " hand-
some is, that handsome does "—for he was strongly sus-
pected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having
once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty
but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair
of stairs' window. These evidences of an incompatibility
of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay him off, and effect a
separation by mutual consent. He went to India with his
capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family,
he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a
Baboon ; but I think it must have been a Baboo — or a Be-
gum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his death reached
home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, no-
body knew; for immediately upon the separation she
took her maiden name again, bought a cottage in a hamlet
on the sea-coast a long way off, established herself there
as a single woman with one servant, and was under-
stood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible re-
tirement.

My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe ;
but she was mortally affronted by his marriage, on the
ground that my mother was " a wax doll. " She had never
seen my mother, but she knew her to be not yet twenty.
My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was
double my mother's age when he married, and of but a
delicate constitution. He died a year afterwards, and, as
I have said, six months before I came into the world.

4 PERSONAL HISTORY A^D EXPERIENCE

This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what
/may be excused for calling, that eventful and important
Friday. I can make no claim therefore to have known, at
that time, how matters stood; or to have any remembrance,
founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what fol-
lows.

My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health,
and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and
desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little
stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of
prophetic pins, in a drawer up-stairs, to a world not at all
excited on the subject of his arrival ; my mother, I say, was
sitting by the fire, that bright, . windy March afternoon,
very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive
out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes,
as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw a
strange lady coming up the garden.

My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance,
that it was Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on
the strange lady, over the garden -fence, and she came walk-
ing up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and compo-
sure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else.

When she reached the house, she gave another proof of
her identity. My father had often hinted that she seldom
conducted herself like any ordinary Christian; and now,
instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that
identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the
glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say
it became perfectly flat and white in a moment.

She gave my mothei such a turn, that I have always been
convinced I am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been
born on a Friday.

My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone
behind it in the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the
room, slowly and inquiringly, began on the other side, and
carried her eyes on, like a Saracen's head in a Dutch clock,
until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown and
a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be
obeyed, to come and open the door. My mother went.

"Mrs. David Copperfield, I think" said Miss Betsey; the
emphasis referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning
weeds, and her condition.

"Yes," said my mother, faintly.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 5

" Miss Trotwood," said the visitor. " You have heard of
her, I dare say? "

My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And
she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to
imply that it had been an overpowering pleasure

" Xow you see her,*' said Miss Betsey. My mother bent
her head, and begged her to walk in.

They went into the parlour my mother had come from,
the fire in the best room on the other side of the passage
not being lighted — not having been lighted, indeed, since
my father's funeral; and when they were both seated, and
Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying
to restrain herself, began to cry.

"Oh, tut, tut, tut!" said Miss Betsey, in a hurry.
"Don't do that! Come, come! "

My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried
until she had had her cry out.

"Take off your cap, child," said Miss Betsey, "and let
me see you."

My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compli-
ance with this odd request, if she had any disposition to do
so. Therefore she did as she was told, and did it with
such nervous hands that her hair (which was luxuriant and
beautiful) fell all about her face.

" Why, bless my heart ! " exclaimed Miss Betsey. " You
are a very baby ! "

My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appear-
ance even for her years ; she hung her head, as if it were
her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that indeed she
was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but
a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which en-
sued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her
haii-, and that with no ungentle hand ; but, looking at her,
in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the
skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee,
and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire.

"In the name of Heaven," said Miss Betsey, suddenly,
' why Rookery? "

" Do you mean the house, ma'am? " asked my mother.

" Why Eookery? " said Miss Betsey. " Cookery would
have been more to the purpose, if you had had any practical
ideas of life, either of you."
. "The name was Mr. Copperfield' s choice," returned my

6 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

mother. " When he bought the house, he liked to think
that there were rooks about it."

The evening wind made such a disturbance just now,
•among some tall old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden,
that neither my mother nor Miss Betsey could forbear
glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like
giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds
of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild
arms about, as if their late confidences were really too
wicked for their peace of mind, some weather-beaten
ragged old rooks' -nests, burdening their higher branches,
swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea.

"Where are the birds? " asked Miss Betsey.

"The ?" My mother had been thinking of some-
thing else.

"The rooks — what has become of them?" asked Miss
Betsey. !

"There have not been any since we have lived here,"
said my mother. " We thought — Mr. Copperfield thought
— it was quite a large rookery ; but the nests were very old
ones, and the birds have deserted them a long while."

" David Copperfield all over ! " cried Miss Betsey.
"David Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a
rookery when there's not a rook near it, and takes the
birds on trust, because he sees the nests ! "

"Mr. Copperfield," returned my mother, "is dead, and if
you dare to speak unkindly of him to me "

My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary
intention of committing an assault and battery upon my
aunt, who could easily have settled her with one hand,
even if my mother had been in far better training for such
an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed
with the action of rising from her chair ; and she sat down
again very meekly, and fainted.

When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had
restored her, whichever it was, she found the latter stand-
ing at the window. The twilight was by this time shading
down into darkness ; and dimly as they saw each other,
they could not have done that without the aid of the fire.

" Well? " said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as
if she had only been taking a casual look at the prospect;
"and when do you expect "

"I am all in a tremble," faltered my mother. "I don't

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. <

know what's the matter. I shall die, I am sure! "

"No, no, no," said Miss Betsey. "Have some tea."

"Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any
good? " cried my mother in a helpless manner.

"Of course it will," said Miss Betsey. "It's nothing
but fancy. What do you call your girl? "

"I don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am," said
my mother innocently.

" Bless the baby ! " exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously
quoting the second sentiment of the pincushion in the
drawer upstairs, bat applying it to my mother instead of
me, "I don't mean that. I mean your servant-girl."

"Peggotty," said my mother.

"Peggotty! " repeated Miss Betsey, with some indigna-
tion. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being
has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named
Peggotty? "

"It's her surname," said my mother, faintly. "Mr.
Copperfleld called her by it, because her Christian name
was the same as mine."

" Here ! Peggotty ! " cried Miss Betsey, opening the par-
lour-door. "Tea. Your mistress is a little unwell. Don't
dawdle."

Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as
if she had been a recognised authority in the house ever
since it had been a house, and having looked out to con-
front the amazed Peggotty coming along the passage with
a candle at the sound of a Strange voice, Miss Betsey shut
the door again, and sat down as before : with her feet on
the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands
folded on one knee.

" You were speaking about its being a girl," said Miss
Betsey. " I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a pre-
sentiment that it must be a girl. Now child, from the mo-
ment of the birth of this girl "

''Perhaps boy," my mother took the liberty of putting
in.

" 1 tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,"
returned Miss Betsey. " Don't contradict. From the mo-
ment of this girl's birth, child, I intend to be her friend,
I intend to be her godmother, and I beg you'll call her
Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes
in life with this Betsey Trotwood. There must be no

fi PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

trifling with her affections, poor dear. She must be well
brought up, and well guarded from reposing any foolish
confidences where they are not deserved. I must make
that my care."

There was a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of
these sentences, as if her own old wrongs were working
within her, and she repressed any plainer reference to them
by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, at least,
as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire : too
much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, ami
too subdued and bewildered altogether, to observe anything
very clearly, or to know what to say.

" And was David good to you, child? " asked Miss Bet-
sey, when she had been silent for a little while, and these
motions of her head had gradually ceased. " Were you
comfortable together? "

"We were very happy," said my mother. "Mr. Cop-
perfield was only too good to me."

" What, he spoilt you, I suppose? " returned Miss Betsey.

" For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this
rough world again, yes, I fear he did indeed," sobbed my
mother.

" Well ! Don't cry ! " said Miss Betsey. " You were not
equally matched, child — if any two people can be equally
matched — and so I asked the question. You were an
orphan, weren't you? "
'"Yes."

"And a governess? "

" I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copper-
field came to visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me,
and took a great deal of notice of me, and paid me a good
deal of attention, and at last proposed to me. And I accepted
him. And so we were married," said my mother simply.

" Ha ! !Poor baby ! " mused Miss Betsey, with her frown
still bent upon the fire. "Do you know anything? "

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," faltered my mother.

/<k About keeping house, for instance," said Miss Betsey.

"Not much, I fear," returned my mother. "Not so
much as I could wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching
me "

(" Much he knew about it himself ! ") said Miss Betsey in
a parenthesis.

— "And I hope I should have improved, being very anx-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 8

ious to learn, and lie very patient to teach, if the great mis-
fortune of his death "—my mother broke down again here,
and could get no farther.

" Well, well!" said Miss Betsey.

— "1 kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced
it with Mr. Copperfield every night," cried my mother in
another burst of distress, and breaking down again.

" Well, well !" said Miss Betsey. " Don't cry any more,

— " And I am sure we never had a word of difference
respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to
my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to
my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines," resumed my
mother in another burst, and breaking down again.

"You'll make yourself ill," said Miss Betsey, "and you
know that will not be good either for you or for my god-
daughter. Come ! You mustn't do it ! "

This argument had some share in quieting my mother,
though her increasing indisposition perhaps had a larger
one There was an interval of silence, only broken by Miss
Betsey's occasionally ejaculating "Ha! " as she sat with
her feet upon the fender. .

"David had bought an annuity for himself with his
money, I know," said she, by and by. "What did he do

for you? " ...

"Mr. Copperfield," said my mother, answering witn
some difficulty, "was so considerate and good as to secure
the reversion of a part of it to me."

" How much? " asked Miss Betsey.

"A hundred and five pounds a year," said my mother.

" He might have done worse," said my aunt.

The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother
was so much worse that Peggotty, coming in with the tea-
board and candles, and seeing at a glance how ill she was,
—as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there had been
licrht enough,— conveyed her up-stairs to her own room
with all speed ; and immediately despatched Ham Peggotty,
her nephew, who had been for some days past secreted in
the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger
in case of emergencv, to fetch the nurse and doctor.

Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when
they arrived within a few minutes of each other, to find an
unknown lady of portentous appearance, sittmg before the
fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her

10 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing
about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she
was quite a mystery in the parlour ; and the fact of her
having a magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and
sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract
from the solemnity of her presence.

The doctor having been up-stairs and come down again,
and having satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a
probability of this unknown lady and himself having to sit
there, face to face, for some hours, laid himself out to be
polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the
mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to
take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost
in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one
side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in
modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to
say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He couldn't
have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered
him one gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one ; for
he spoke as slowly as he walked; but he wouldn't have
been rude to him, and he couldn't have been quick with
him, for any earthly consideration.

Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on
one side, and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to
the jewellers' cotton, as he softly touched his left ear —

"Some local irritation, ma'am?"

" What? " replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one
ear like a cork.

Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness — as he
told my mother afterwards — that it was a mercy he didn't
^se his presence of mind. But he repeated, sweetly :

" Some local irritation, ma'am? "

" Nonsense ! " replied my aunt, and corked herself again,
at one blow.

Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look
at ner feebly, as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was
calied up-stairs again. After some quarter of an hour's
absence, he returned.

"Well? " said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear
nearest to him.

"Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are — we are
progressing slowly, ma'am."

" Ba — a — ah ! " said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 11

jontemptuous interjection. And corked herself., as be-
fore

Really — really — as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was
almost shocked; speaking in a professional point of view
alone, he was almost shocked. But he sat and looked at
ber, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as she sat look-
ing at the fire, until he was again called out. After an-
other absence, he again returned.

" Well? " said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that
side again.

"Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are — we are
progressing slowly, ma'am."

;' Ya — a — ah ! " said my aunt. With such a snarl at him,
that Mr. Chillip absolutely could not bear it. It was really
calculated to break his spirit, he said afterwards. He pre-
ferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the dark and a
strong draught, until he was again sent for.

Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was
a very dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be
regarded as a credible witness, reported next day, that hap-
pening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour after this, he
was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to
and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he
could make his escape. That there were now occasional,
sounds of feet and voices overhead which he inferred the
cotton did not exclude, from the circumstance of his evi-
dently being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to
expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were
loudest. That, marching him constantly up and down by
the collar (as if he had been taking too much laudanum),
she, at those times, shook him, rumpled his hair, made
light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confounded
them with her own, and otherwise touzled and maltreated
him This was in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw
him at half -past twelve o'clock, soon after his release, and
affirmed that he was then as red as I was.

The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at
such a time, if at any time. He sidled into the parlour as
soon as he was at liberty, and said to my aunt in his meek-
est manner —

'• Well, ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you. *

'* What upon? " said my aunt, sharply

Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity

12 PERSONAL HISTOKY AND EXPERIENCE

of my aunt's manner; so ne made her a little bow, and
gave her a little smile, to mollify her.

"Mercy on the man, what's he doing! " cried my aunt,
impatiently " Can^t he speak? n

"Be calm, my dear ma'am," said Mr. Chillip, in his
softest accents. "There is no longer any occasion for un-
easiness, ma'am. Be calm."

It has since been considered almost a miracle that my
aunt didn't shake him, and shake what he had to say out
of him. She only shook her own head at him, but in a
way that made him quail.

"Well, ma'am," resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had
courage, "I am happy to congratulate you. All is now
over, ma'am, and well over."

During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted
to the delivery of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly.

"How is she? " said my aunt, folding her arms with her
bonnet still tied on one of them.

"Well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I
hope," returned Mr. Chillip. "Quite as comfortable as we
can expect a young mother to be, under these melancholy
domestic circumstances. There cannot be any objection to
your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do her good."

"And she. How is she?" said my aunt, sharply.

Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and
looked at my aunt like an amiable bird.

" The baby," said my aunt. "How is she? "

" Ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, " I apprehended you had
known. It's a boy."

My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the
strings^ in the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr.
Chillip;s head with it, put it on bent, walked out, and
never came back. She vanished like a discontented fairy ;
or like one of those supernatural beings whom it was popu-
larly supposed I was entitled to see ; and never came back
any more.

No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed ;
but Betsey Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land
of dreams and shadows, the tremendous region whence I
had so lately travelled ; and the light from the window of
our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such
travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust
that once was he, without whom I had never been.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. IS

CHAPTER II.

I OBSERVE.

The first objects that assume a distinct presence before
me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are
my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and
Peggotty, with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they
seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face,
and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the
birds didn't peck her in preference to apples.

I believe I can remember these two at a little distance
apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling
on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the
other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot
distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peg-
gotty's fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of
its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-
grater.

This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most
of us can go farther back into such times than many of us
suppose ; just as I believe the power of observation in num-
bers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its
closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most growD
men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater
propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have
acquired it ; the rather, as I generally observe such men to
retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of
being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have pre-
served from their childhood.

I might have a misgiving that I am " meandering " in
stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that
I build these conclusions, in part upon my own experience
of myself ; and if it should appear from anything I may set
down in this narrative that I was a child of close observa-
tion, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my child-
hood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteris-
tics. ^ .

Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my in-
fancy, the first objects I can remember as standing out by

14 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

themselves from a confusion of things, are my mother and
Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see.

There comes out of the cloud, our house — not new to me,
but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the
ground-floor is Peggotty' s kitchen, opening jnto a back
yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the centre, without
any pigeons in it ; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without
any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to
me, walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner.
There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow, and seems
to take particular notice of me as I look at him through the
kitchen-window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce. Of
the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me
with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I
dream at night : as a man environed by wild beasts might
dream of lions,

Here is a long passage — what an enormous perspective I
make of it!— leading from Peggotty' s kitchen to the front-
door. A dark storeroom opens out of it, and that is a
place to be run past at night; for I don't know what may
be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, when
there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, letting
a mouldy air come out at the door, in which there is the
smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at
one whiff . Then there are the two parlours : the parlour
in which we sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peg-
gotty— for Peggotty is quite our companion, when her work
is done and we are alone — and the best parlour where we
sit on a Sunday ; grandly, but not so comfortably. There
is something of a doleful air about that room to me, for
Peggotty has told me — I don't know when, but apparently
ages ago — about my father's funeral, and the company hav-
ing their black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother
reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was raised
up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are
afterwards obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the
quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the
dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn
moon.

There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as
the grass of that churchyard ; nothing half so shady as its
trees; nothing half so quiet as its tombstones. The sheep
are feeding there, when I kneel up, early in the morning,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 15

in my little bea in a closet within my mother's room, to
look out at it; and 1 see the red light shining on the sun-
dial, and think within myself, " Is the sun-dial glad, I
wonder, that it can tell the time again? "

Here is our pew in the church. What a high- backed
pew ! With a window near it, out of which our house can
be seen, and is seen many times during the morning's ser-
vice, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she
can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. But
though Peggotty" s eye wanders, she is much offended if
mine does, and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that
I am to look at the clergyman. But I can't always look at
him— I know him without that white thing on, and I arr
afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stop-
ping the service to inquire— and what am I to do? It's a
dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something I look
at my mother, but she pretends not to see me I look at a
boy in the aisle, and he makes faces at me. I look at the
sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and
there 1 see a stray sheep— I don't mean a sinner, but mut-
ton—half making up his mind to come into the church. I
feel that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted
to say something out loud ; and what would become of me
then ! I look up at the monumental tablets on the wall,
and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late of this parish, and
what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when
affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians
were in vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chil-
lip, and he was in vain ; and if so, how he likes to be re-
minded of it once a week. I look from Mr. Chillip, in his
Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a good
place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would
make, with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it,
and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown
down on his head In time my eyes gradually shut up ;
and, from seeming jto hear the clergyman singing a drowsy
song in the heat' I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat
with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by
Peggotty.

And now I see the outside of uur house, with the latticed
bedroom-windows, standing open to let in the sweet-smell-
ing air, and the ragged old rook^" -nests still dangling in
the elm-trees at the bottom of the front garden. Now J

16 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the
empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are — a verj preserve of
butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate
and padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper
and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other gar-
den, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while
I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look
unmoved A great wind rises, and the summer is gone in
a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, dancing
about the parlour When my mother is out of breath and
rests herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her
bright curls round her fingers, and straightening her waist,
and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look
so well, and is proud of being so pretty.

That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and
a sense that we were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and
submitted ourselves in most things to her direction, were
among the first opinions — if they may be so called — that
I ever derived from what I saw.

Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire,
alone. I had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles.
I must have read very perspicuously, or the poor soul must
have been deeply interested, for I remember she had a
■cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were a sort
of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but
having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother
came home from spending the evening at a neighbour's, I
would rather have died upon my post (of course) than have
gone to bed. I had reached that stage of sleepiness when
Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. I
propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and
looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little
bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread — how old it
looked, being so wrinkled in all directions ! — at the little
house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived:
at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. Paul's
Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the
brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I though *"
lovely. I felt so sleepy, that T knew if I lost sight of any-
thing, for a moment, I was gone -

" Peggotty," says I, suddenly, " were you ever married? "

"Lord, Master Davy," replied Peggotty. "What's pu^
marriage in your head ! "

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 1?

She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke rue.
And then she stopped in her work, and looked at me, with
her needle drawn out to its thread's length.

•• But were you ever married, Peggotty? " says I. "You
are a very handsome woman, an't you?"

I thought her in a different style from my mother, cer-
tainly; but of another school of beauty, I considered her a
perfect example. There was a red velvet footstool in the
best parlour, on which my mother had painted a nosegay.
The ground- work of that stool, and Peggotty' s complexion,
appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool
was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no
difference.

" Me handsome, Davy ! " said Peggotty. " Lawk, no, my
dear. But what put marriage in your head? "

"I don't know! — You mustn't marry more than one
person at a time, may you, Peggotty? "

"Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest de-
cision.

'• But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why
then you may marry another person, mayn't you, Peg-
gotty?"

'• You may," says Peggotty, " if you choose, my dear.
That's a matter of opinion."

" But what is your opinion, Peggotty? " said I.

I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she
looked so curiously at me.

"My opinion is," said Peggotty, taking her eyes from
me, after a little indecision and going on with her work,
"that I never was married myself, Master Davy, and that
I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the subject."

" You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?" said I,
after sitting quiet for a minute.

I really thought she was, she had been so short with me ;
but I was quite mistaken : for she laid aside her work
(which was a stocking of her own), and opening her arms
wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good
squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being
very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after
she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her
gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the oppos-
ite side of the parlour, while she was hugging me.

" Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills".
2

18 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

said Peggotty, who was not quite right in the name yet,
"for I an't heard half enough."

I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so
queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the croco-
diles. However, we returned to those monsters, with fresh
wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand
for the sun to hatch ; and we ran away from them, and
baffled them by constantly turning, which they were unable
to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy make ; and we
went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp
pieces of timber down their throats; and in short we ran
the whole crocodile gauntlet / did, at least ; but I had
my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her
needle into various parts of her face and arms, all the time.

We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the
alligators, when the garden-bell rang. We went out to the
door ; and there was my mother, looking unusually pretty,
I thought, and with her a gentleman with beautiful black
hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from
church last Sunday.

As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me
in her arms and kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more
highly privileged little fellow than a monarch — or some-
thing like that ; for my later understanding comes, I am
sensible, to my aid here.

" What does that mean? " I asked him, over her
shoulder.

He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn't like
him or his deep voice, and I was jealous that his hand
should touch my mother's in touching me — which it did.
I put it away, as well as I could.

"Oh, Davy! " remonstrated my mother.

"Dear boy ! " said the gentleman. " I cannot wonder at
his devotion ! "

I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother's face
before. She gently chid me for being rude ; and, keeping
me close to her shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for
taking so much trouble as to bring her home. She put out
her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with his
own, she glanced, I thought, at me.

"Let us say ' good night,' my fine boy," said the gentle-
amn, when he had bent his head — /saw him! — over my
mother's little glove.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 19

'- Good night!" said I.

" Come ! Let us be the best friends in the world ! " said
the gentleman, laughing. " Shake hands ! "

My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him
the other.

" Why, that's the wrong hand, Davy! " laughed the gen-
tleman.

My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was re-
solved, for my former reason, not to give it him, and I did
not. I gave him the other, and he shook it heartily, and
said I was a brave fellow, and went away.

At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and
give us a last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before
the door was shut.

Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger,
secured the fastenings instantly, and we all went into the
parlour. My mother, contrary to her usual habit, instead '
of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, remained at the
other end of the room, and sat singing to herself.

—"Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma' am/' said
Peggotty, standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the
room, with a candlestick in her hand.

"Much obliged to you, Peggotty," returned my mother,
in a cheerful voice, "I have had a very pleasant evening."

" A stranger or so makes an agreeable change," suggested
Peggotty.

"A very agreeable change, indeed," returned my mother.
Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle
:-of the room, and my mother resuming her singing, I fell
: asleep, though I was not so sound asleep but that I could
hear voices, without hearing what they said. When I half
awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and
my mother both in tears, and both talking.

"Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have
.iked/' said Peggotty. "That I say, and that I swear! "

" Good Heavens ! " cried my mother. " You'll drive me
mad ! "Was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants
as I am? WTiy do I do myself the injustice of calling my-
self a girl? Have I never been married, Peggotty? "
"God knows you have, ma'am," returned Peggotty.
"Then, how can you dare," said my mother— "you know
- don't mean how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you
--ave the heart — to make me so uncomfortable and say such

20 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I
haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to ! "

"The more's the reason," returned Peggotty, "for say-
ing that it won't do. No! That it won't do. No! No
price could make it do. No ! " — I thought Peggotty would
have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic
with it.

"How can you be so aggravating," said my mother,
shedding more tears than before, " as to talk in such an
unjust manner ! How can you go on as if it was all settled
and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over and over
again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civili-
ties nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What
am I to do? If people are so silly as to indulge the senti-
ment, is it my fault? 'What am I to do, I ask you?
Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face,
or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of
that sort? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say
you'd quite enjoy it."

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to
heart, I thought.

"And my dear boy," cried my mother, coming to the
elbow-chair in which I was, and caressing me, "my own
little Davy ! Is it to be hinted to me that I am wanting in
affection for my precious treasure, the dearest little fellow
that ever was ! "

"Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing," said
Peggotty.

" You did, Peggotty ! " returned my mother. " You know
you did. What else was it possible to infer from what you
said, you unkind creature, when you know as well as I do,
that on his account only last quarter I wouldn't buy myself
a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed the
whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy. You
know it is, Peggotty. You can't deny it." Then, turning
affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, " Am I
a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, cruel, sel-
fish, bad mama? Say I am, my child ; say ' yes,' dear boy,
and Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty' s love is a great
deal better than mine, Davy. 1 don't love you at all, do
I? "

At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the
loudest of the party, but I am sure we were all sincere

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 21

about it. I was quite, heart-broken myself, and am afraid
that in the first transports of wounded tenderness I called
Peggotty a "beast." That honest creature was in deep
affliction, I remember, and must have become quite button-
less on the occasion ; for a little volley of those explosives
went off, when, after having made it up with my mother,
she kneeled down by the elbow-chair, and made it up with

me.

We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking
me, for a long time ; and when one very strong sob quite
hoisted me up in bed, I found my mother sitting on the
coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in her arms,
after that, and slept soundly.

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the
gentleman again, or whether there was any greater lapse of
time before he reappeared, I cannot recall. I don't profess
to be clear about dates. But there he was, in church, and
he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too, to
look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window.
It did not appear to me that he took much notice of it, but
before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of the
blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself, but he
refused to do that— I could not understand why— so she
plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he
would never, never, part with it any more ; and I thought
he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to
pieces in a day or two.

L Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than
she had always been. My mother deferred to her very
much— more than usual, it occurred to me— and we were
all three excellent friends ; still we were different from
what we ased to be, and were not so comfortable among
ourselves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps ob-
jected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she
had in her drawers, or to her going so often to visit at that
neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my satisfaction, make out
how it was.

Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with
bhe black whiskers. I liked him no better than at first,
and had the same uneasy jealousy of him; but if I had any
reason for it beyond a child' s instinctive dislike, and a gen-
eral idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my
mother without any help, it certainly was not the reason

22 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

that I might have found if I had been older. No such
thing came into my mind, or near it. I could observe, in
little pieces, as it were ; but as to making a net of a num-
ber of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was,
as yet, beyond me.

One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front
garden, when Mr. Murdstone — I knew him by that name
now — came by, on horseback. He reined up his horse to
salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to
see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily
proposed to take me on the saddle before him if I would
like the ride.

The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed
to like the idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood
snorting and pawing at the garden-gate, that I had a great
desire to go. So I was sent upstairs to Peggotty to be
made spruce; and, in the meantime, Mr. Murdstone dis-
mounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm,
walked slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweet-
briar fence, while my mother walked slowly up and down
on the inner, to keep him company. I recollect Peggotty
and I peeping out at them from my little window ; I recol-
lect how closely they appeared to be examining the sweet-
briar between them, as they strolled along ; and how, from
being in a perfectly angelic temper, Peggotty turned cross
in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong way, exces-
sively hard.

Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along
on the green turf by the side of the road. He held me
quite easily with one arm, and I don't think I was restless
usually ; but I could not make up my mind to sit in front
of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up
in his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye — I
,vant a better word to express an eye that has no depth in
it to be looked into — which, when it is abstracted, seems,
from some peculiarity of light, to be disfigured, for a mo-
ment, at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced
at him, T observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and
wondered what he was thinking about so closely. His hair
and whiskers were blacker and thicker, looked at so near,
than even I had given them credit for being. A squareness
about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication
of the strong black beard he shaved close every day. re-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 23

minded me of the wax-work that had travelled into our
neighbourhood some half-a-year before. This, his regular
eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his
complexion— confound his complexion, and his memory! —
made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very
handsome man. I have no doubt that my poor dear
mother thought him so too.

We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen
were smoking cigars in a room by themselves. Each of
them was lying on at least four chairs, and had a large
rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and boat
cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together.

They both rolled on to their feet, in an untidy sort of
manner, when we came in, and said, " Halloa, Murdstone !
We thought you were dead ! "

"Not yet," said Mr. Murdstone.

'•And who's this shaver?" said one of the gentlemen,
taking hold of me.

"That's Davy," returned Mr. Murdstone.

" Davy who? " said the gentleman. " Jones? "

"Copperfield," said Mr. Murdstone.

" What ! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield' s incumbrance? "
cried the gentleman. "The pretty little widow? "

"Quinion," said Mr. Murdstone, "take care, if you
please. Somebody's sharp."

" Who is? " asked the gentleman, laughing.

I looked up, quickly ; being curious to know.

"Only Brooks of Sheffield," said Mr. Murdstone.

I was quite relieved to fmd that it was only Brooks of
Sheffield ; for, at first, I really thought it was I.

There seemed to be something very comical in the repu-
tation of Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen
laughed heartily when he was mentioned, and Mr. Murd-
stone was a good deal amused also. After some laughing,
the gentleman whom he had called Quinion said —

" And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in refer-
ence to the projected business? "

- Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much
about it at present," replied Mr. Murdstone; "but he is
not generally favourable, I believe."

There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said
he would ring the bell for some sherry in which to drink to
Brooks. This he did; and when the wine came, he made

24 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before I drank it,
stand up and say, "Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!"
The toast was received with great applause, and such
hearty laughter that it made me laugh too ; at which they
laughed the more. In short, we quite enjoyed ourselves.

We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the
grass, and looked at things through a telescope — I could
make out nothing myself when it was put to my eye, but I
pretended I could — and then we came back to the hotel to
an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two gentle-
men smoked incessantly — which, I thought, if I might
judge from the smell of their rough coats, they must have
been doing, ever since the coats had first come home from
the tailor's. I must not forget that we went on board the
yacht, where they all three descended into the cabin, and
were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at
work, when I looked down through the open skylight.
They left me, during this time, with a very nice man, with
a 'very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat
upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on,
with " Skylark " in capital letters across the chest. I
thought it was his name; and that as he lived on board
ship and hadn't a street-door to put his name on, he put it
there instead; but when I called him Mr. Skylark, he said
it meant the vessel.

I observed all day that Mr. Murd stone was graver and
steadier than the two gentlemen. They were very gay and
careless. They joked freely with one another, but seldom
with him. It appeared to me that he was more clever and
cold than they were, and that they regarded him with some-
thing of my own feeling. I remarked that once or twice,
when Mr, Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone
sideways, as if to make sure of his not being displeased ;
and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the other gentleman)
was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave him a
secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone,
who was sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that
Mr. Murdstone laughed at all that day, except at the Shef-
field joke — and that, by the bye, was his own.

We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine
evening, and my mother and he had another stroll by the
sweetbriar, while I was sent in to get my tea. WTien he
was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I had had$

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 25

and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they
had said about her, and she laughed, and told me they were
impudent fellows who talked nonsense — but I knew it
pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I
took the opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted
with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered Xo, only
she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and
fork way.

CaD I say of her face — altered as I have reason to re-
member it, perished as I know it is — that it is gone, when
here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any
face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street?
Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded,
and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now,
as it fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when
my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and,
truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is,
still holds fast what it cherished then?

I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed
after this talk, and she came to bid me good night. She
kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed, and laying
her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said —

"What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I
can't believe it."

" ■ Bewitching ' " 1 began.

My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me.

"It was never bewitching," she said, laughing. "It
never could have been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it
wasn't! "

"Yes it was. 'Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield, ' " I re-
peated stoutly. "And ' pretty.5 "

"Xo, no, it was never pretty. Xot pretty," interposed
my mother, laying her fingers on my lips again.

"Yes it was. ' Pretty little widow.' "

" What foolish, impudent creatures!" cried my mother,
laughing and covering her face. " What ridiculous men !
An't they? Davy dear "

-Well, ma."

"Don't tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them.
I am dreadfully angry with them myself; but I would
rather Peggotty didn't know."'

I promised, of course; and we kissed one another oTTer
and over again, and I soon fell fast asleep

26 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

It seems to ine, at this distance of time, as if it were the
next day when Peggotty broached the striking and adven-
turous proposition I am about to mention ; but it was prob=
ably about two months afterwards.

"We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother
was out as before) in company with the stocking and the
yard measure, and the bit of wax, and the box with Saint
Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book, when Peggott}',
after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth
as if she were going to speak, without doing it — which 1
thought was merely gaping, or I should have been rather
alarmed — said coaxingly :

" Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me
and spend a fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth?
Wouldn't that be a treat? "

" Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty? " I in-
quired, provisionally.

" Oh, what an agreeable man he is ! " cried Peggotty,
holding up her hands. "Then there's the sea; and the
boats and ships; and the fishermen; and the beach; and
Am to play with "

Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first
chapter; but she spoke of him as a morsel of English
Grammar.

I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that
it would indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say?

"Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea," said Peggotty,
intent upon my face, "that she'll let us go. I'll ask her,
if you like, as soon as ever she comes home. There now! "

"But what's she to do while we are away?" said I9
putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point.
"She can't live by herself."

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in
the heel of that stocking, it must have been a very little
one indeed, and not worth darning.

" I say ! Peggotty ! She can't live by herself, you know. "

" Oh bless you ! " said Peggotty, looking at me again at
last. "Don't you know? She's going to stay for a fort-
night with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs. Grayper's going to have a
lot of company."

Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited,
in the utmost impatience, until my mother came home from
Mrs. Grayper's (for it was that identical neighbour), to as-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 27

certain if we could get leave to carry out this great idea.
Without being nearly so much surprised as I had expected,
my mother entered into it readily ; and it was all arranged
that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were
to be paid for.

The day soon came for our going. It was such an early
day that it came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of
expectation, and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery
mountain, or some other great convulsion of nature, might
interpose to stop the expedition We were to go in a car
rier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast.
I would have given any money to have been allowed tc
wrap 'myself up overnight, and sleep in my hat and boots.

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to
recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home; to
think how little I suspected what I did leave for ever.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at
the gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful
fondness for her and for the old place I had never turned
my back upon before, made me cry. I am glad to know
that my mother cried too, and that T felt her heart beat
against mine.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to
move, my mother ran out at the gate, and called to him
to stop, that she might kiss me once more. I am glad to
dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted
up her face to mine, and did so.

As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came
up to where she was, and seemed to expostulate with her
for being so moved. I was looking back round the awning
of the cart, and wondered what business it was of his
Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side,
seemed anything but satisfied ; as the face she brought back
in the cart denoted

I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on
this supposititious case : whether, if she were employed to
lose me like the boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to
track my way home again by the buttons she would shed.

28 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER 111

1 HAVE A CHANGE

The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I
should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if
he liked to keep the people waiting to whom the packages
were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he sometimes
chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said
he was only troubled with a cough.

The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his
horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with
one of his arms on each of his knees. I say " drove, " but
it struck me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth
quite as well without him, for the horse did all that ; and
as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling.

Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which
would have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going
to London by the same conveyance. We ate a good deal,
and slept a good deal. Peggotty always went to sleep with
her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which
never relaxed ; and I could not have believed unless I had
heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have
snored so much.

We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and
were such a long time delivering a bedstead at a public-
house, and calling at other places, that I was quite tired,
and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather
spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the
great dull waste that lay across the river ; and I could not
help wondering, if the world were really as round as my
geography- book said, how any part of it came to be so flat.
But I reflected that Yarmouth might be situated at one of
the poles ; which would account for it.

As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent
prospect lying a straight low line under the sky, I hinted
to Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it;
and also that if the land had been a little more separated
from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite
so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 29

nicer. But Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than
usual, that we must take things as we found them, and
that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a
Yarmouth Bloater.

When we got into the street (which was strange enough
to me), and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar,
and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up
and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a
place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who
heard my expressions of delight with great complacency,
and told me it was well known (I suppose to those who had
the good fortune to be born Bloaters) that Yarmouth was,
upon the whole, the finest place in the universe,

"Here's my Am!" screamed Peggotty, "growedout of
knowledge ! "

He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house ; and
asked me how I found myself, like an old acquaintance. I
did not feel, at first, that I knew him as well as he knew
me, because he had never come to our house since the night
I was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me.
But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on
his back to carry me home. He was, now, a huge, strong
fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion, and round-
shouldered; but with a simpering boy's face and curly
light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was
dressed in a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff
trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone,
without any legs in them. And you couldn't so properly
have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in atoj\
like an old building, with something pitchy.

Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours
under his arm, and Peggotty carrying another small box of
ours, we turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and
little hillocks of sand, and went past gas-works, rope-
walks, boat-builders' yards, shipwrights' yards, ship
breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths'
forges, and a great litter of such places, until we came out
upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance ; when
Ham said,

" Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy! "

I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the
wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but
no house could /make out. There was a black barge, or

VO PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

some other kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high
and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of
it for a chimney and smoking very cosily ; but nothing else
in the way of a habitation that was visible to me

" That's not it? " said I. '; That ship-looking thing? "

"That's it, Mas'r Davy," returned Ham.

If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I sup
pose I could not have been more charmed with the romantic
idea of living in it. There was a delightful door cut in the
side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in
it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that it was a real
boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of
times, and which had never been intended to be lived
in, on dry land. That was the captivation of it to me.
If it had ever been meant to be lived in, I might have
thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but never
having been designed for any such use, it became a per-
fect abode.

It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as passible.
There was a table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of
drawers, and on the chest of drawers there was a tea-tray
with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol, taking a
walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a
hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible ;
and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have smashed
a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were
grouped around the book. On the walls there were some
common coloured pictures, framed and glazed, of Scripture
subjects ; such as I have never seen since in the hands of
pedlars, without seeing the whole interior of Peggotty's
brother's house again, at one view. Abraham in red going
to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow cast into a
den of green lions, were the most prominent of these.
Over the little mantel-shelf, was a picture of the Sarah
Jane lugger, built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden
6tern stuck on to it; a work of art, combining composition
with carpentry, which I considered to be one of the most
enviable possessions that the world could afford. There
were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of
which I did not divine then ; and some lockers and boxes
and conveniences of that sort, which served for seats and
eked out the chairs.

All this, I saw in the first glance after I crossed the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 31

thresholc. - child-like, according to my theory — and then
Peggotty opened a little door and showed me my bedroom
It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen
—in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, where
the rudder used to go through ; a little looking-glass, just
the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed
with oyster-shells ; a little bed, which there was just room
enough to get into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug
on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as
milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite
ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed
in this delightful house, was the smell of fish ; which was
so searching, that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief
to wipe my nose, I found it smelt exactly as if it had
wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this discovery in
confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother
dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards
found that a heap of these creatures, in a state of wonder-
ful conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off
pinching whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be
found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and
kettles were kept.

We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white
apron, whom I had seen curtseying at the door when I was
on Ham's back, about a quarter of a mile off. likewise
by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so), with a
necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her
when I offered to, but ran away and hid herself. By and
by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled
dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a
hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As
he called Peggotty "Lass," and gave her a hearty smack on
the cheek, I had no doubt, from the general propriety of
her conduct, that he was her brother ; and so he turned out
— being presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the
master of the house.

"Glad to see you, Sir," said Mr Peggotty. "You'll
find us rough, Sir, but you'll find us ready."

I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be
happy in such a delightful place.

"How's your Ma, Sir? " said Mr. Peggotty. "Did you
leave her pretty jolly? "

I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly

32 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

as I could wish, and that she desired her compliments —
which was a polite fiction on my part.

"I'm much obleeged to her, I'm sure," said Mr. Peg-
gotty. " Well, Sir, if you can make out here, for a fort-
nut, 'long wi' her," nodding at his sister, "and Ham, and
little Em'ly, we shall be proud of your company."

Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable
manner, Mr. Peggotty went out to wash himself in a ket*
tlef ul of hot water, remarking that " cold would never get
his muck off. " He soon returned, greatly improved in ap-
pearance ; but so rubicund, that I couldn't help thinking
his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and
crawfish — that it went into the hot water very black and
came out very red.

After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug
(the nights being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the
most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could
conceive. To hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know
that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and
to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near
but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment.
Little Em'ly had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by
my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which
was just large enough for us two, and just fitted into the
chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty, with the white apron,
was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at
her needlework was as much at home with Saint Paul's
and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any
other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson
in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling for-
tunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy im-
pressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr.
Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for
conversation and confidence.

" Mr. Peggotty ! " says I.

" Sir," says he.

"Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you
lived in a sort of ark? "

Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but an-
swered—

"No, Sir. I never giv him no name."

" Who gave him that name, then? " said I, putting ques*
tion number two of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 3*

* Why, Sir, his father giv it him/' said Mr. Peggotty.

" I thought you were his father ! "

" My brother Joe was his father," said Mr. Peggotty.

"Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after a respectful
pause.

"Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.

I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not
Ham's father, and began to wonder whether I was mistaken
about his relationship to anybody else there. I was so
curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it out
with Mr. Peggotty.

"Little Em' ly," I said, glancing at her. "She is your
daughter, isn't she, Mr. Peggotty? "

"No, Sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father."

I couldn't help it. " —Dead, Mr. Peggotty? " I hinted,
after another respectful silence.

" Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.

I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not
got to the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom
somehow. So I said:

"Haven't you any children, Mr. Peggotty?"

" No, master," he answered, with a short laugh. " I'm
a bacheldore."

"A bachelor!" I said, astonished. "Why, who's that,
Mr. Peggotty? " Pointing to the person in the apron who
was knitting.

"That's Missis Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty.

" Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty? "

But at this point Peggotty — I mean my own peculiar
Peggotty — made such impressive motions to me not to ask
any more questions, that I could only sit and look at all the
silent company, until it was time to go to bed. Then, in
the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that
Ham and Eni'ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom
my host had at different times adopted in their childhood,
when they were left destitute ; and that Mrs. Gummidge
was the widow of his parte er in a boat, who had died very
poor. He was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but
as good as gold and as true as steel — those were her
similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he
ever showed a violent temper or swore an oath, was this
generosity of his ; and if it were ever referred to, by any
one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his

34 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore a
dreadful oath that he would be " Gornied " if he didn't
cut and run for good, if it was ever mentioned again. It
appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody had the
least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to
be gormed ; but that they all regarded it as constituting a
most solemn imprecation.

I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and
listened to the women's going to bed in another little crib
like mine at the opposite end of the boat, and to him and
Ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the
hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of
mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually
stole upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and
coming on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy
apprehension of the great deep rising in the night. But I
bethought myself that I was in a boat, after all ; and that a
man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on
board if anything did happen.

Nothing happened, however, worse than morning.
Almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster- shell frame of
my mirror I was out of bed, and out with little Em'ly,
picking up stones upon the beach.

" You're quite a sailor, I suppose? " I said to Em'ly. I
don't know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt
it an act of gallantry to say something ; and a shining sail
close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the
moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to
say this.

"No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, "I'm afraid of
the sea."

" Afraid ! " I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and
looking very big at the mighty ocean. " i" an't ! "

"Ah! but it's cruel," said Em'ly. " I have seen it very
cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big
as our house all to pieces."

" I hope it wasn't the boat that "

"That father was drownded in?" said Em'ly. "No
Not that one. I never see that boat."

" Nor him? " I asked her.

Little Em'ly shook her head "Not to remember f "

Here was a coincidence. I immediately went into an ex-
planation how I had never seen my own father ; and how

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 35

my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in the hap-
piest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant
to live so; and how my father's grave was in the church-
yard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the
boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds sing
many a pleasant morning. But there were some differences
between Em'ly' s orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She
had lost her mother before her father; and where her
father's grave was no one knew, except that it was some-
where in the depths of the sea.

"Besides," said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells
and pebbles, "your father was a gentleman and your
mother is a lady ; and my father was a fisherman and my
mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle Dan is a
fisherman."

"Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he? " said I.

"Uncle Dan — yonder," answered Em'ly, nodding at the
boat-house.

" Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should
think? "

"Good? " said Em'ly. " If I was ever to be a lady, I'd
give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen
trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold
watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money."

I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved
these treasures. I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult
to picture him quite at his ease in the raiment proposed for
him by his grateful little niece, and that I was particularly
doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat ; but I kept these
sentiments to myself.

Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in
her enumeration of these articles, as if they were a glorious
vision. We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles.

" You would like to be a lady? " I said.

Em'ly looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes."
*I should like it very much, We would all be gentle-
folks together, then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs.
Gummidge. We wouldn't mind, then, when there come
stormy weather. — Not for our own sakes, I mean. We
would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd aeip
'em with money when they come to any hurt."

This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory, and there-
fore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleas-

36 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ure in the contemplation of it, and little Em'ly was
emboldened to say, shyly,

"Don't you think you are afraid of the sea, now? "

It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt
if I had seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in, I
should have taken to my heels, with an awful recollection
of her drowned relations. However, I said "No," and 1
added, " You don't seem to be, either, though you say you
are ;" — for she was walking much too near the brink of a
sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon,
and I was afraid of her failing over.

" I'm not afraid in this way," said little Em'ly. '• But I
wake when it blows, and tremble to think of Uncle Dan
and Ham, and believe I hear 'em crying out for help,
That's why I should like so much to be a lady. But I'm
not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look here ! "

She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber
which protruded from the place we stood upon, and over-
hung the deep water at some height, without the least de-
fence. The incident is so impressed on my remembrance,
that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form here, I
dare say, accurately as it was that day, and little Em'ly
springing forward to her destruction (as it appeared to
me), with a look that I have never forgotten, directed far
out to sea.

The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came
back safe to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at
the cry I had uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there
was no one near. But there have been times since, in my
manhood, many times there have been, when I have
thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden
things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her
wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of
her into danger, any tempt 'ug her towards him permitted
on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a
chance of ending that day. There has been a time since
when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could
have been revealed to me at « glance, and so revealed as
that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preser-
vation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I
ought to have held it up to save her. There has been 9
time since — I do not say it lasted long, but it has been —
when 1 have asked myself the question, would it hava

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 37

been better for little Em'ly to have had the waters close
above her head that morning in my sight ; and when I have
answered Yes, it would have been.

This may be premature. I have set it down too soon,
perhaps. But let it stand.

We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things
that we thought curious, and put some stranded starrish
carefully back into the water— I hardly know enough of
the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they
had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the reverse
—and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty's dwell-
ing. We stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to
exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast glow*
ing with health and pleasure.

" Like two young mavishes, " Mr. Peggotty said. I knew
this meant, in our local dialect, like two young thrushes,
and received it as a compliment.

Of course I was in love with little Em'ly. I am sure I
loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with
greater purity and more disinterestedness, than can enter
into the best love of a later time of life, high and enno-
bling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up something
round that blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealised,
and made a very angel of her. If, any sunny forenoon,
she had spread a little pair of wings, and flown away
before my eyes, I don't think I should have regarded it as
much more than I had had reason to expect.

We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in
a loving manner, hours and hours. The day sported by us,
as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child
too, and always at play. I told Em'ly I adored her, and
that unless she confessed she adored me I should be reduced
to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said
she did, and I have no doubt she did.

As to anv sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other
difficulty in our way, little Em'ly and I had no such
trouble, because we had no future. We made no more
provision for growing- older, than we did for growing
younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and
Peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening when we sat,
lovingly, on our little locker side by side, "Lor! wasn't it
beautiful!" Mr. Peggotty smiled at us from behind his
pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing

88 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I
suppose, that they might have had in a pretty toy, or a
pocket model of the Colosseum.

I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always
make herself so agreeable as she might have been expected
to do, under the circumstances of her residence with Mr.
Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge1 s was rather a fretful disposi-
tion, and she whimpered more sometimes than was com-
fortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I
was very sorry for her; but there were moments when
it would have been more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs.
Gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to
retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived.

Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called
The \Yilling Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on
the second or third evening of our visit, and by Mrs.
Gummidge' s looking up at the Dutch clock, between eight
and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was
more, she had known in the morning he would go there.

Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had
burst into tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. " I
am a lone lorn creetur'," were Mrs. Gummidge's words,
when that unpleasant occurrence took place, "and every-
think goes contrairy with me."

"Oh, it'll soon leave off," said Peggotty — I again mean
our Peggotty — "and besides, you know, it's not more dis-
agreeable to you than to us."

" I feel it more," said Mrs. Gummidge.

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind.
Mrs. Gummidge's peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to
me to be the warmest and snuggest in the place, as her
chair was certainly the easiest, but it didn't suit her that
day at all. She was constantly complaining of the cold,
and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she
2alled "the creeps." At last she shed tears on that sub-
ject, and said again that she was " a lone lorn creetur' and
everythink went contrairy with her."

"It is certainly very cold," said Peggotty. "Everybody
must feel it so."

" I feel it more than other people," said Mrs. Gummidge.

So at dinner ; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped
immediately after me, to whom the preference was given
as a visitor of distinction. The fish were small and bony

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. rt

and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all acknowledged
that we felt this something of a disappointment ; but Mrs.
Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears
again, and made that former declaration with great bitter
ness.

Accordingly; when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine
o* clock, this unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in
her corner, in a very wretched and miserable condition.
Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had been
patching up a great pair of water-boots; and I, with little
Em'ly by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gum-
midge had never made any other remark than a forlorn
sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea.

" Well, mates, " said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, " and
how are you? "

We all said something, or looked something, to welcome
him, except Mrs. Gummidge, who only shook her head over
her knitting.

" What's amiss?" said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his
hands. "Cheer up, old mawther! " (Mr. Peggotty meant
old girl.)

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up.
She took out an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her
eyes ; but instead of putting it in her pocket, kept it out,
and wiped them again, and still kept it out, ready for
use.

" What's amiss, dame? " said Mr. Peggotty.

" Nothing," returned Mrs. Gummidge. "You've come
from The Willing Mind, Dan'l? "

" Why yes, I've took a short spell at The Willing Mind
to-night," said Mr. Peggotty.

"I'm sorry I, should drive you there," said Mrs. Gum-
midge.

" Drive ! I don't want no driving," returned Mr. Peg
gotty, with an honest laugh. " I only go too ready."

" Very ready," said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head,
and wiping her eyes " Yes, yes, very ready. T am sorry
it should be along of me that you're so ready."

"Along o' you! It an't along o' you!" said Mr. Peg-
gotty. "Don't ye believe a bit on it."

" Yes, yes, it is," cried Mrs. Gummidge. " I know what
I am. I know that I am a lone lorn creetur', and not only
that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go con-

40 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

trairy with everybody. Yes, yes, I feel more than othei
people do, and I show it more. It's my misf ortun' . "

I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all
this, that the misfortune extended to some other members
of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty
made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty
to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up.

" I an't what I could wish myself to be," said Mrs. Gum-
midge. "I am far from it. I know what I am. My
troubles has made me contrairy. I feel my troubles, and
they make me contrairy. I wish I didn't feel 'em, but a
do. I wish I could be hardened to 'em, but I an't. I
make the house uncomfortable.- I don't wonder at it.
I've made your sister so all day, and Master Davy."

Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, " No. you
haven't, Mrs. Gummidge," in great mental distress.

'• It's far from right that I should do it," said Mrs. Gum-
midge. "It an't a fit return. I had better go into the
house and die. I am a lone lorn creetur', and had much
better not make myself contrairy here. If thinks must go
contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me
go contrairy in my parish. Dan'l, I'd better go into the
house, and die and be a riddance."

Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook
herself to bed. When she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who
had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the prof oundest
sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head with
a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face,
said in a whisper :

"She's been thinking of the old 'un! "

I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge
was supposed to have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty,
on seeing me to bed, explained that it was the late Mr.
Gummidge ; and that her brother always took that for a
received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a
moving effect upon him. Some time after he was in his
hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham,
"Poor thing! She's been thinking of the old 'un! " And
whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar man*
ner during the remainder of our stay (which happened some
few times), he always said the same thing in extenuation
of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest conimis-
-eration.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 41

So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the
variation of the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty' s times
of going out and coming in, and altered Ham's engage-
ments also. When the latter was unemployed, he some-
times walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and
once or twice he took us for a row. I don't know why one
slight set of impressions should be more particularly asso-
ciated with a place than another, though I believe this
obtains with most people, in reference especially to the as-
sociations of their childhood. I never hear the name, or
read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a cer-
tain Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for
church, little Em'ly leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily
dropping stones into the water, and the sun, away at sea,
just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing us the
ships, like their own shadows.

At last the day came for going home. I bore up against
the separation from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but
my agony of mind at leaving little Em'ly was piercing.
We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where the carrier
put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I
redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger
than those in which apartments are usually announced in
manuscript, as being to let.) We were greatly overcome at
parting ; and if ever, in my life, I have had a void made in
my heart, I had one made that day.

Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been
ungrateful to my home again, and had thought little or
nothing about it. But I was no sooner turned towards it,
than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that
way with a steady finger ; and I felt, all the more for the
sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my
mother was my comforter and friend.

This gained upon me as we went along ; so that the nearer
we drew, and the more familiar the objects became that we
passed, the more excited I was to get there, and to run into
her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing in these trans-
ports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and looked
confused and out of sorts.

Bhmderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of
her, when the carrier's horse pleased — and did. How well
I recollect it, on a cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky,
threatening rain !

C V

42 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half
crying in my pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was
not she, but a strange servant.

"Why, Peggotty!" I said, ruefully, "isn't she come
home? "

"Yes, yes, Master Davy," said Peggotty. " She's come
home. Wait a bit, Master Davy, and I'll — I'll tell you
something. "

Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in
getting out of the cart, Peggotty was making a most ex-
traordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too blank and
strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she took
me by the hand ; led me, wondering, into, the kitchen ; and
shut the door.

"Peggotty!" said I, quite frightened. "What's the
matter? "

"Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!"
she answered, assuming an air of sprightliness.

" Something's the matter, I'm sure. Where's mama?

"Where's mama, Master Davy? " repeated Peggotty.

"Yes. Why hasn't she come out to the gate, and what
have we come in here for? Oh, Peggotty ! " My eyes were
full, and I felt as if I were going to tumble down.

" Bless the precious boy ! " cried Peggotty, taking hold of
me. " What is it? Speak, my pet ! "

"Not dead, too! Oh, she's not dead, Peggotty? "

Peggotty cried out No ! with an astonishing volume of
voice; and then sat down, and began to pant, and said T
had given her a turn.

I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her
another turn in the right direction, and then stood before
her, looking at her in anxious inquiry.

"You see, dear, I should have told you before now," said
Peggotty, "but I hadn't an opportunity. I ought to have
made it, perhaps, but I couldn't azackly " — that was always
the substitute for exactly, in Peggotty' s militia of words —
" bring my mind to it. "

"Go on, Peggotty," said I, more frightened than before.

" Master Davy, " said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with
a shaking hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way.
"What do you think? You have got a Pa! "

I trembled, and turned white. Something — I don't know
what, or how — connected with the grave in the churehyarU,

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 43

and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an
unwholesome wind.

"A new one," said Peggotty.

"Anew one? " I repeated.

Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing some-
thing that was very hard, and, putting out her hand, said :

"Come and see him."

" I don't want to see him."

— '"And your mama," said Peggotty.

I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best
parlour, where she left me. On one side of the fire, sat
my mother; on the other, Mr. Murdstone. My mother
dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly I
thought.

"Now, Clara my dear," said Mr. Murdstone. '-'Recol-
lect ! control yourself, always control yourself ! Davy boy,
how do you do? "

I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I
went and kissed my mother: she kissed me, patted me
gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her work.
I could not look at her, I could not look at him, I knew
quite well that he was looking at us both ; and I turned to
the window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were
drooping their heads in the cold.

As soon as I could creep away, I crept up-stairs. My
old dear bedroom was changed, and I was to lie a long way
off. I rambled down-stairs to find anything that was like
itself, so altered it all seemed ; and roamed into the yard.
I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-
kennel was filled up with a great dog — deep-mouthed and
black-haired like Him — and he was very angry at the sight
of mer and sprang out to get at me.

CHAPTER IV.

I FALL INTO DISGRACE.

If the room to which my bed was removed were a sen-
tient thing that could give evidence, I might appeal to it at
this day — who sleeps there now, I wonder! — to bear wit-
ness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it. I went up

44 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the
way while I climbed the stairs ; and, looking as blank and
strange npon the room as the room looked npon me, sat
down with my small hands crossed, and thought.

I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the
room, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the wall,
of the flaws in the window-glass making ripples and dim-
ples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being rickety on
its three legs, and having a discontented something about
it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the influ-
ence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but, except
that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure
I never thought why I cried. At last in my desolation I
began to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little
Em'ly, and had been torn away from her to come here
where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half
as much as she did. This made such a very miserable
piece of business of it, that I rolled myself up in a corner
of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep.

I was awakened by somebody saying, " Here he is ! " and
uncovering my hot head. My mother and Peggotty had
come to look for me, and it was one of them who had done it.

"Davy," said my mother. " What's the matter? "

I thought it very strange that she should ask me, and
answered, "Nothing." I turned over on my face, I recol-
lect, to hide my trembling lip, which answered her with
greater truth.

"Davy," said my mother. "Davy, my child! "

I dare say no words she could have uttered would have
affected me so much, then, as her calling me her child. I
hid my tears in the bedclothes, and pressed her from me
with my hand, when she would have raised me up.

" This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing ! " said
my mother. " I have no doubt at all about it. How can
you reconcile it to your conscience, I wonder, to prejudice
my own boy against me, or against anybody who is dear to
me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty? "

Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only
answered, in a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually re-
peated after dinner, " Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield,
and for what you have said this minute, may you nevei be
truly sorry ! "

"It's enough to distract me. ; cried my mother. i{Iu

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 45-

my honeymoon, too, when my most inveterate enemy might
relent, one would think, and not envy me a little peace of
mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy! Peggotty,
you savage creature? Oh, dear me!" cried my mother,
turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish, wilful
manner. "What a troublesome world this is, when one
has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possi-
ble!"

I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers
nor Peggotty' s, and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It
was Mr. Murdstone's hand, and he kept it on my arm as
he said:

"What's this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten? —
Firmness, my dear ! "

" I am very sorry, Edward," said my mother. " I meant
to be very good, but I am so uncomfortable."

"Indeed!" he answered. "That's a bad hearing, so
soon, Clara."

"I say it's very hard I should be made so now," returned
my mother, pouting; "and it is — very hard — isn't it? "

He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed
her. I knew as well, when I saw my mother's head lean
down upon his shoulder, and her arm touch his neck — I
knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into
any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it.

" Go you below, my love," said Mr. Murdstone. " David
and I will come down together. My friend," turning a
darkening face on Peggotty, when he had watched my
mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile :
"do you know your mistress's name? "

" She has been my mistress a long time, Sir," answered
Peggotty. " I ought to know it."

"That's true," he answered. "But I thought I heard
you, as I came up-stairs, address her by a name that is not
hers. She has taken mine, you know Will you remem-
ber that? "

Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed
herself out of the room without replying ; seeing, I suppose,
that she was expected to go, and had no excuse for remain-
ing. When we two were left alone, he shut the door, and
sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him,
looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no
less steadily, to his As I recall our oeing opposed thus.

46 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

face to face, I seem again to hear iny heart beat fast and
high.

"David," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them
together, " if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with,
what do yon think I do? "

"I don't know."

"I beat him."

I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, bnt I
felt, in my silence, that my breath was shorter now.

" I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, 'I'll
conquer that fellow ; ' and if it were to cost him all the
blood he had, I should do it. , What is that upon your face? "

"Dirt," I said.

He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if
he had asked the question twenty times, each time with
twenty blows, I believe my baby heart would have burst
before I would have told him so.

" You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,"
he said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, " and you
understood me very well, I see. Wash that face, Sir, and
come down with me."

He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out
to be like Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head
to obey him directly. I had little doubt then, and I have
less doubt now, that he would have knocked me down with-
out the least compunction, if I had hesitated.

" Clara, my dear," he said, when I had done his bidding,
and he walked me into the parlour, with his hand still on
my arm; "you will not be made uncomfortable any more,
I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful humours."

God help me, I might have been improved for my whole
life, I might have been made another creature perhaps, for
life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encourage-
ment and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of
welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home,
might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth,
instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made
me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was
sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange,
and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed
me with her eyes more sorrowfully still — missing, perhaps,
some freedom in my childish tread — but the word was not
spoken, and the time for it was gone.

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 47

We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be
vevy fond of my mother — I am afraid I liked him none the
better for that— and she was very fond ef him. I gathered
from what they said, that an elder sister of his was coming
to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening.
I am not certain whether I fonnd out then, or afterwards,
that, without being actively concerned in any business, he
had some share in, or some annual charge upon the profits
of, a wine -merchant's house in London, with which his
family had been connected from his great-grandfather's
time, and in which his sister had a similar interest; but I
may mention it in this place, whether or no.

After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and 1 was
meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardi-
hood to slip away, lest it should offend the master of the
house, a coach drove up to the garden-gate, and he went
out to receive the visitor. My mother followed him. I
was timidly following her, when she turned round at the
parlour-door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as'
she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new
father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and
secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting
out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came
near to where he was standing in the garden, where she let
mine go, and drew hers through his arm.

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-
looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she
greatly resembled in face and voice ; and with very heavy
eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being
disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers,
she had carried them to that account. She brought with
her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials
on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coach-
man she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she
kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her
arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had
never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as
Miss Murdstone was.

She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of
welcome, and there formally recognized my mother as a
new and aear relation. Then she looked at me, and said -v

"Is that your boy, sister-in-law? "

My mother acknowledged me

48 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Generally speaking," said Miss Murdstone, " I don't like
boys. How d'ye do, boy? "

Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I
was very well, and that I hoped she was the same ; with
such an indifferent grace, that Miss Murdstone disposed of
me in two words :

" Wants manner ! "

Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she
begged the favour of being shown to her room, which be-
came to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread,
wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known
to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or
twice when she was out) numerous little steel fetters and
rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself
when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-
glass in formidable array.

As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and
had no intention of ever going again. She began to " help "
my mother next morning, and was in and out of the store-
closet all day, putting things to rights, and making havoc
in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing
I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly
haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted
somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this
delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely
hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cup-
board without dapping it to again, in the belief that she
had got him.

Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murd-
stone, she was a perfect Lark in point of getting up. She
was up (and, as I believe to this hour, looking for that
man) before anybody in the house was stirring. Peggotty
gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye
open ; but I could not concur in this idea ; for I tried it
myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found
it couldn't be done.

On the very first morning after her arrival she was up
and ringing her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came
down to breakfast and was going to make the tea, Miss
Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which
was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said :

"Now, Clara, my dear. 7. am come here, you know, to
relieve you of all the trouble I can. You're much too

OF DAVIH COPPERFIELD 49

pretty and thoughtless " — my mother blushed but laughed,
and seemed not to dislike this character — "to have any
duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me.
If you'll be so good as give me your keys, my dear, I'll at-
tend to all this sort of thing in future."

From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her
own little jail all day, and under her pillow all night, and
my mother had no more to do with them than I had.

My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her
without a shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murd-
stone had been developing certain household plans to her
brother, of which he signified his approbation, my mother
suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might
have been consulted.

" Clara !" said Mr Murdstone sternly " Clara I i won-
der at you."

"Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward V' cried
my mother, "and it's very well for you to talk about firm-
ness, but you wouldn't like it yourself."

Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which
both Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However
I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that
time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly
comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for
tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's hu-
mour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should state
it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm ; nobody in his
world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone ; nobody else in
his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be
bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception.
She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an in-
ferior and tributary degree. My mother was another
exception. She might be firm, and must be ; but only in
bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no
other firmness upon earth..

"It's very hard," said my mother, "that in my own
house "

" My own house? " repeated Mr. Murdstone. " Clara J "

" Our own house, I mean, "faltered my mother, evidently
frightened — " I hope you must know what I mean, Edward
— it's very hard that in your own house I may not have a
word to say about domestic matters. I am sure I managed
very well before we were married. There's evidence," said
4

50 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

my mother, sobbing; "ask Peggotty if I didn't do veij
well when I wasn't interfered with! "

"Edward," said Miss Murdstone, "let there be an end of
this. I go to-morrow."

"Jane Murdstone," said her brother, "be silent! How
dare you to insinuate that you don't know my character
better than your words imply ? "

"I am sure," my poor mother went on, at a grievous dis-
advantage and with many tears, "I don't want anybody
to go. I should be very miserable and unhappy if anybody
was to go. I don't ask much. I am not unreasonable. I
only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much
obliged to anybody who assists. me, and I only want to be
consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were
jpleased, once, with my being a little inexperienced and
girlish, Edward — I am sure you said so — but you seem to
hate me for it now, you are so severe."

"Edward," said Miss Murdstone, again, "let there bean
end of this. I go to-morrow."

"Jane Murdstone," thundered Mr Murdstone "Will
you be silent? How dare you? "

Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-hand-
kerchief, and held it before her eyes.

"Clara," he continued, looking at my mother, "you sur-
prise me ! You astound me ! Yes, I had a satisfaction in
the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless per-
son, and forming her character, and infusing into it some
amount of that firmness and decision of which if, stood in
need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come
to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my
sake, a condition something like a housekeeper's, and when
she meets with a base return "

"Oh, pray, pray, Edward," cried my mother, "don't
accuse me of being ungrateful. I am sure I am not un-
grateful. No one ever said 1 was, before. I have many
faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear! "

"When Jane Murdstone meets, I say," he went on, after
waiting until my mother was silent, "with a base return,
that feeling of mine is chilled and altered."

"Don't, my love, say that!" implored my mother very
piteously. "Oh, don't, Edward! T can't bear to hear it.
Whatever I am, I am affectionate. I know I am affection
ate. I wouldn't say it, if I wasn't certain that T am.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 51

Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you I'm affectionate.'*

"There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara," said Mr
Murdstone in reply, " that can have the least weight with
me. You lose breath."

''Pray let us be friends," said my mother, "I couldn't
live under coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have
a great many defects, I know, and it's very good of you,
Edward, with your strength of mind, to endeavour to cor-
rect them for me. Jane, I don't object to anything. I
should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leav
ing " My mother was too much overcome to go on.

"Jane Murdstone," said Mr. Murdstone to his sister.
"any harsh words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It
is not my fault that so unusual an occurrence has taken
place to-night. I was betrayed into it by another. Nor is
it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another Let
us both try to forget it. And as this," he added, after
these magnanimous words, "is not a fit scene for the boy —
David, go to bed ! "

I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood
in my eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress; but
I groped my way out, and groped my way up to my room
in the dark, without even having the heart to say good
night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her
coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke
me, she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and
that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting alone.

Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I
paused outside the parlour-door, on hearing my mother's
voice. She was very earnestly and humbly entreating Miss
Murdstone' s pardon, which that lady granted, and a per-
fect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother
afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without first
appealing to Miss Murdstone, or without having first ascer-
tained, by some sure means, what Miss Murdstone' s opin-
ion was ; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out of
temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards
her bag as if she were going to take out the keys and offer
to resign them to my mother, without seeing that my
mother was in a terrible fright.

The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, dark
ened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrath
ful I have thought, since, that its assuming that chai

52 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

acter was a necessary consequence of Mr. Murdstone's
firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let anybody off from
the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find
any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember the
tremendous visages with which we used to go to church,
and the changed air of the place Again the dreaded Sun-
day comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like a
guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again,
Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it
had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me ; then
my mother ; then her husband. There is no Peggotty now,
as in the old time. Again, J. listen to Miss Murdstone
mumbling the responses, and emphasising all the dread
words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll
round the church when she says "miserable sinners," as if
she were calling all the congregation names. Again, I
catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly
between the two, with one of them muttering at each eai
like low thunder Again, I wonder with a sudden feai
whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be
wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the
angels in heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I
move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone
pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.

Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neigh-
bours looking at my mother and at me, and whispering
Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, and I linger behind
alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if my
mother' s step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if
the gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away.
Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call to
mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she
and I ; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary,
dismal day.

There had been some talk on occasions of my going to
boarding-school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated
it, and my mother had of course agreed with them Noth-
ing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. In the
meantime, I learnt lessons at home.

Shall I ever forget those lessons ! They were presided
over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone
and his sister, who were always present, and found them a
favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that

OB- DAVID COPPERFIELD. 53

miscalled firmness, which, was the bane of both our lives.
I believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been
apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother
and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember
learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I
look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling
novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of 0 and
Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they
used to do. But they recall no feeling of disgust or reluc-
tance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along a
path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have
been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and
manner all the way. Bat these solemn lessons which suc-
ceeded those, I remember as the death-blow at my peace,
and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were
very long, very numerous, very hard — perfectly unintelli-
gible, some of them, to me — and I was generally as much be-
wildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morn-
ing back again.

I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with
my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother
is ready for me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready
as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though
he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone,
sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very
sight of these two has such an influence over me, that I
begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get
into my head, all sliding away, and going I don't know
where. I wonder where they do go, by the by?

I hand the first book to mother. Perhaps it is a gram-
mar, perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last
drowning look at the page as I give it into her hand, and
start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh.
I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over
another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tum-
ble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother
would show me the book if she dared, but she does not
dare, and she says softly:

"Oh, Davy, Davy!"

"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the
boy. Don't say, 'Oh, Davy, Davy!' That's childish
He knows his lesson, or he does not know it."

54 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"He does not know it," Miss Murdstone interpose*
awfully.

" I am really afraid he does not," says my mother

"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, * you
should just give him the book back, and make him know it."

"Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what I in-
tend to do, my dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more,
and don't be stupid."

I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once
more, but am not so successful with the second, for I am
very stupid. I tumble down before I get to the old place,
at a point where I was all right before, and stop to think.
But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the number
of yards of net in Miss Murdstone' s cap, or of the price of
Mr. Murdstone' s dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous
problem that I have no business with, and don't want to
have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a
movement of impatience which I have been expecting for a
long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother
glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it
by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are
done.

There is a pile of these arreare very soon, and it swells
like a rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid
1 get. The case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wal-
lowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I give up all idea of
getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The despair-
ing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I
blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in
these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking no-
body is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the mo-
tion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who
has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in t
deep warning voice .

"Clara!"

My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly Mr
Murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws
it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the
room by the shoulders.

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to hap-
pen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented
for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and
begins, u~*f T go into a cheese-monger's shop, and buy rive

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 55

thousand double -Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny
each, present payment" — at which I see Miss Murdstone
secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any
result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, having
made a mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate
into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help
me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for
the rest of the evening.

It seems to me: at this distance of time, as if my unfor-
tunate studies generally took this course I could have
done very well if I had been without the Murdstones : but
the influence of the Murdstones upon me was like the fas-
cination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even
when I did get through the morning with tolerable credit,
there was not much gained but dinner ; for Miss Murdstone
never could endure to ste me untasked, and if I rashly
made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's
attention to me by saying, "Clara, my dear, there's noth-
ing like work — give your boy an exercise ;" which caused
me to be clapped down to some new labour there and theD .
As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had
very little of that ; for the gloomy theology of the Murd-
stones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers
(though there ivas a child once set in the midst of the Dis-
ciples), and held that they contaminated one another.

The natural result of this treatment, continued, I sup-
pose, for some six months or more, was to make me sullen,
dull, and dogged. I was not made the less so, by my sense
of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from
my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied
but for one circumstance.

It was this. My father had left a small collection of
books in a little room up-stairs, to which I had access (for
it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house
ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick
Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones,
the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and Robin-
son Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company.
They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something
beyond that place and time, — they, and the Arabian
Nights, and the Tales of the Genii, — and did me no harm ;
fou whatever harm was in some of them was not there for
me ; i" knew nothing of rt It is astonishing to me now, how

66 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings
over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curi-
ous to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my
small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by imper-
sonating my favourite characters in them — as I did — and
by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones —
which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom
Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have
sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at
a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few
volumes of Voyages and Travels — I forget what, now — that
were on those shelves ; and for days and days I can re-
member to have gone about my region of our house, armed
with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees — the
perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal Brit-
ish Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved
to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost
dignity, from having his ears boxed with the Latin Gram-
mar. I did ; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in
despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the
world, dead or alive.

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I
think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a sum-
mer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sit-
ting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the
neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot
of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my
mind, connected with these books, and stood for some
locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go
climbing up the church -steeple ; I have watched Strap, with
the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon
the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion
held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little
village alehouse.

The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was
when I came to that point of my youthful history to which
I am now coming again.

One morning when I went into the parlour with my
books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone
looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding something round
the bottom of a cane — a lithe and limber cane, which he
left off binding when I came tt> and poised and switched
in the air.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 57

"I tell you, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, "I have been
often flogged myself."

"To be sure; of course," said Miss Murdstone,

"Certainly, my dear Jane, "faltered my mother, meekly.
"But— but do you think it did Edward good?"

"Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?" asked Mr
Murdstone, gravely.

"That's the point! " said his sister

To this my mother returned, " Certainly, my dear Jane/'
and said no more.

I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in
this dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone' s eye as it lighted
on mine.

"Now, David," he said — and I saw that cast again as he
said it — "you must be far more careful to-day than usual."
He gave the cane another poise, and another switch ; and
having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside
him, with an impressive look, and took up his book.

This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a
beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not
one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page ; I tried
to lay hold of them ; but they seemed, if I may so express
it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with
a smoothness there was no checking. ,

We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in,
with an idea of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving
that I was very well prepared; but it turned out to be
quite a mistake. Book after book was added to the heap
of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all
the time. And when we came at last to the five thousand
cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my
mother burst out crying.

"Clara! " said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.

"I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think," said my
mother.

I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and
said, taking up the cane :

" Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with
perfect firmness, the worry and torment that David has
occasioned her to-day. That would be stoical Clara is
greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly ex-
pect so much from her. David, you and I will go up-
stairs, bojr."

58 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

As he took me out at the door, niy mother ran towards
us. Miss Murdstone said, "Clara! are you a perfect
fooi? " and interfered. I saw my mother stop her ears
then, and I heard her crying.

He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely — 1 am
certain he had a delight in thai formal parade of executing
justice — and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head
under his arm.

" Mr. Murdstone ! Sir ! » I cried to him. " Don't ! Pray
don't beat me ! I have tried to learn, Sir, but I can't learn
while you and Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed ! "

"■ Can't you, indeed, David?" he said. "We'll try
that."

He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him
somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him
not to beat me. It was only for a moment that I stopped
him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in
the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me
in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through* It
sets my teeth on edge to think of it.

He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to
death. Above all the noise we made, I heard them run-
ning up the stairs, and crying out — I heard my mother cry-
ing out — and Peggotty. Then he was gone ; and the door
was locked outside ; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and
torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor.

How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an un-
natural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house !
How well I remember, when my smart and passion began
to cool, how wicked I began to feel !

I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a
sound I crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in
the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly, that it almost fright-
ened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry
afresh, when I moved ; but they were nothing to the guilt
I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a
most atrocious criminal, I dare say.

It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window
(I had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon
the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out),
when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with
some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon
the table without a word, glaring at me the while with ex-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 59

emplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after
her.

Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether
anybody else would come. When this appeared improb-
able for that night, I undressed, and went to bed; and
there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to
me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed?
Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to
prison? Whether I was at all in danger of beiug hanged?
I never shall forget the waking next morning ; the being
cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being
weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of re
membrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before I was out
of bed ; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk
in the garden for half-an-hour and no longer ; and retired,
leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of that
permission.

I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment,
which lasted five days If I could have seen my mother
alone, I should have gone down on my knees to her and
besought her forgiveness ; but I saw no one, Miss Murd-
stone excepted, during the whole time— except at evening
prayers in the parlour ; to which I was escorted by Miss
Murdstone after everybody else was placed ; where I was
stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the
door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer,
before any one arose from the devotional posture. I only
observed that my mother was as far off from me as she
could be, and kept her face another way, so that I never
saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone' s hand was bound up in a
large linen wrapper

The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to
any one. They occupy the place of years in my remem-
brance. The way in which I listened to all the incidents
of the house that made themselves audible to me ; the ring-
ing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the mur-
muring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs ; to any laugh-
ing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more
dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and dis-
grace—the uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night,
when I would wake thinking it was morning, and find that
the family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length
)f. night had yet to come • -the depressed dreams and night

60 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

mares I had — the return of day, noon, afternoon, evening,
when the boys played in the churchyard, and I watched
them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to
show myself at the window lest they should know I was a
prisoner — the strange sensation of never hearing myself
speak — the fleeting intervals of something like cheerful-
ness, which came with eating and drinking, and went away
with it — the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh
smell, and its coming down faster and faster between, me
and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to
quench me in gloom, and fear, and remorse — all this ap-
pears to have gone round and round for years instead of
days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remem-
brance.

On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by
hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. I started up
in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said :

" Is that you, Peggotty? "

There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard
my name again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful,
that I think I should have gone into a fit, if it had not oc-
curred to me that it must have come through the keyhole.

I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips
to the keyhole, whispered :

" Is that you, Peggotty, dear? "

"Yes, my own precious Davy," she replied. "Be as
soft as a mouse, or the Cat'll hear us."

I understood thi3 to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sen-
sible of the urgency of the case ; her room being close by.

"How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with
me?"

I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the
keyhole, as I was doing on mine, before she answered.
"No. Not very."

" What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do
you know? "

"School. Near London," was Peggotty's answer. I
was obliged to get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the
first time quite down my throat, in consequence of my hav-
ing forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and
put my ear there ; and though her words tickled me a good
deal, I didn't hear them.

" When, Peggotty9 *

0£ DAVID COPPERFIELD 61

"To -morrow.*

u Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes
out of rny drawers? " which she had done, though I have
forgotten to mention it

Yes," said Peggotty. " Box r

Shan't I see mama? "

Yes," said Peggotty- " Morning. *

Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, an^
delivered these words through it with as much feeling and
earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of com-
municating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each
broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own.

"Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with
you. Lately, as I used to be. It ain't because I don't
love you. Just as well and more, my pretty poppet It's
because I thought it better for you. And for some one else
besides, Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you
hear? "

"Ye — ye — ye — yes, Peggotty!" I sobbed

" My own!" said Peggotty, with infinite compassion.
"What I want to say, is That you must never forget
me. For I'll never forget you And I'll take as much
care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you And
I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad
to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's
arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear Though I

ain't no scholar. And I'll— I'll " Peggotty fell to

kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me

"'Thank you, dear Peggotty," said I. "Oh, thank you!
Thank you! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty?
Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly, and
Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they
might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love — especially
to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty? "

The kind soul promised, anc* we both of us kissed tiie
keyhole with the greatest affection— I patted it with m
hand, I recollect, as if it had been her honest face— and
parted From that night there grew up in my breast a
feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She
did not replace my mother ; no one could do that \ but she
came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her,
and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any
other human being- It was ? sort of comical affection? too ;

63 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should
have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it
would have been to me.

In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and
told me I was going to school ; which was not altogether
such news to me as she supposed. She also informed me
that when I was dressed, I was to come down-stairs into
the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I found my
mother, very pale and with red eyes : into whose arms I
ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul.

"Oh, Davy! " she said. "That you could hurt any one
I love ! Try to be better, pray to be better ! I forgive
you ; but I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such
bad passions in your heart."

They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and
she was more sorry for that, than for my going away. I
felt it sorely. I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my
tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into
my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then
glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and then look
down, or look away.

" Master Copperneld's box there ! " said Miss Murdstone,
when wheels were heard at the gate.

I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she ; neither she
nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance,
the carrier, was at the door ; the box was taken out to his
cart, and lifted in.

" Clara ! " said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.

"Ready, my dear Jane," returned my mother. "Good
bye; Davy. You are going for your own good. Good bye,
my child. You will come home in the holidays, and be a
better boy."

"Clara! " Miss Murdstone repeated.

" Certainly, my dear Jane," replied my mother, who was
holding me "I forgive you, my dear boy God bless
you ! ,?

"Clara! " Miss Murdstone repeated.

Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the
cart, and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent,
before I came to a bad end ; and then I got into the cart,
and the lazy horse walked off with it.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 63

CHAPTEK V

I AM SEXT AWAY FROM HOME

We might have gone about half-a-mile, and my pocket-
handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier
stopped short.

Looking out to ascertain what for, I saw, to my amaze-
ment, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart.
She took me in both her arms, and squeezed me to her stays
until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though
I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very
tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing
one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the
elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she
crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into
my hand, but not one word did she say. After another
and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the
cart and ran away ; and, my belief is, and has always been,
without a solitary button on her gown. I picked up one,
of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a
keepsake for a long time.

The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were
coming back. I shook my head, and said I thought not.
"Then, come up," said the carrier to the lazy horse; who
came up accordingly.

Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I
began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially
as neither Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal
British Navy had ever cried, that I could remember, in try-
ing situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution,
proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread
upon the horse's back to dry. I thanked him, and assented ;
and particularly small it looked, under those circumstances.

I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff
leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in
it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with whiten-
ing for my greater delight. But its most precious contents
were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on
which was written, in my mother's hand, "For Davy.

64 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

With my love." I was so overcome "by this, that I asked
the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket-handker-
chief again ; but he said he thought I had better do with-
out it ; and I thought I really had ; so I wiped my eyes on
my sleeve and stopped myself.

For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous
emotions, I was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob.
After we had jogged on for some little time, I asked the
carrier if he was going all the way.

"All the way where? " inquired the carrier

"There," I said.

"Where's there? " inquired the carrier.

'Near London? " I said.

"Why that horse,''' said the .carrier, jerking the rein to
point him out, " would be deader than pork afore he got
over half the ground."

"Are you only going to Yarmouth, then? " I asked.

"That's about it," said the carrier. "And there I shall
take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take
you to — wherever it is."

As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was
Mr. Barkis) to say— he being, as I observed in a former
chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all con-
versational— I offered him a cake as a mark of attention,
which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and
which made no more impression on his big face than it
would have done on an elephant's.

"Did she make 'em, now?" said Mr. Barkis, alwavs
leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard oi
the cart with an arm on each knee.

"Peggotty, do you mean, Sir? "

" Ah ! " said Mr. Barkis. " Her. "

" ITes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cook
ing."

"Do she though? " said Mr. Barkis.

He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't
whistle. He sat looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw
something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time,
By-and-by, he said:

"No sweethearts, I b'lieve?"

" Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis? " For 1 thought
he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded
to that description of refreshmeA~ t

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 65

"Hearts.'1'' said Mr. Barkis. "Sweethearts; no persoD
walks with her ! "

"With Peggotty?"

"Ah!" he said. "Her "

" Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart."

"Didn't she though! " said Mr. Barkis.

Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he
didn't whistle, but sat looking at the horse's ears.

" So she makes," said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval
of reflection, " all the apple parsties, and doos all the cook-
ing, do she? "

I replied that such was the fact.

" Well. I'll tell you what," said Mr. Barkis. " P'raps
you might be writin' to her? "

" I shall certainly write to her," I rejoined

"Ah!" he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me.
"Well! If you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect
to say that Barkis was willin' ; would you? "

"That Barkis is willing," I repeated, innocently Is
that all the message? "

"Ye— es," he said, considering. "Ye— es. Barkis is

willin'."

" But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr.
Barkis," I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far
away from it then, " and could give your own message so
much better. " . .

As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk 01
his head, and once more coufirmed his previous request by
saying, with profound gravity, " Barkis is willin'. That's
the message," I readily undertook its transmission. While
I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that
very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an ink-
stand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus : " My
dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing.
My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P. S. He ^says
he" particularly wants you to know— Barkis is willing."

When I had taken this commission on myself prospec-
tively, Mr. Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I,
feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately, lay
down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I slept soundly
until we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new and
strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at
once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meetmg with

66 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

some of Mr. Peggotty's family there, perhaps even with
little Em'ly herself.

The coach was in the yard, shining very mnch all over
but without any horses to it as yet ; and it looked in that
state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever going to
London. I was thinking this, and wondering what would
ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had put
down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven
up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would ulti-
mately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-
window where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging
up, and said:

" Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone? "

" Yes, ma'am," I said.

" What name? " inquired the lady.

" Copperfield, ma'am," I said.

" That won't do," returned the lady. " Nobody's dinner
is paid for here, in that name."

" Is it Murdstone, ma'am? " I said.

"If you're Master Murdstone," said the lady, "why do
you go and give another name, first? "

I explained to the lady how it was, who then rang a bell,
and called out, " William ! show the coffee-room ! " upon
which a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the oppo-
site side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good deal sur-
prised when he found he was only to show it to me.

It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I
doubt if I could have felt much stranger if the maps had
been real foreign countries, and I cast away in the middle
of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, with
my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the
door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me,
and put a set of castors on it, I think I must have turned
red all over with modesty.

He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the
covers off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I
must have given him some offence. But he greatly relieved
my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and say-
ing, very affably, " Now, six-foot ! come on ! "

I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but
found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork
with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself
with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring sr

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 67

hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner
every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the
second chop, he said:

"There's half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it

now?"

I thanked him and said " Yes." Upon which he poured
it out of a jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against
the light, and made it look beautiful.

" My eye! " he said. " It seems a good deal, don't it? "

"It does seem a good deal," I answered with a smile.
For it was quite delightful to me to find him so pleasant.
He was a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair
standing upright all over his head ; and as he stood with
one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the
other hand, he looked quite friendly.

"There was a gentleman here, yesterday," he said — "a
stout gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer — perhaps you
know him ! "

"No," I said, "I don't think "

" In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat,
speckled choker," said the waiter.

"No," I said bashfully, "I haven't the pleasure "

" He came in here," said the waiter, looking at the light
through the tumbler, " ordered a glass of this ale — would
order it — I told him not — drank it, and fell dead. It was
too old for him. It oughtn't to be drawn ; that's the fact."

I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy ac-
cident, and said I thought I had better have some water.

" Why you see," said the waiter, still looking at the light
through the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, " our
people don't like things being ordered and left. It offends
'em. But J'll drink it, if you like. I'm used to it, and
use is everything. I don't think it'll hurt me, if I throw
my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I? "

I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it?
if he thought he could do it safely, but by no means other-
wise. When he did throw his head back, and take it off
quick, I hal a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing him meet
the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall lifeless
on the carpet. But it didn't hurt him. On the contrary,
I thought he seemed the fresher for it.

" What have we got here? " he said, putting a fork into
my dish. " Not chops9 "

6S PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Chops," I said,

"Lord bless ray soul!" he exclaimed, "I didn't know
they were chops. Why, a chop's the very thing to take
off the bad effects of that beer! Ain't it lucky? "

So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato
in the other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my
extreme satisfaction. He afterwards took another choj),
and another potato ; and after that another chop and an-
other potato. When he had done, he brought me1 a pud-
ding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and
to become absent in his mind for some moments.

"How's the pie?" he said, rousing himself.

"It's a pudding," I made answer,

"Pudding!" he exclaimed. "Why, bless me, so it is!
WTiat!" looking at it nearer, "You don't mean to say
it's a batter-pudding! "

"Yes, it is indeed."

" Why, a batter-pudding," he said, taking up a table-
spoon, "is niy favourite pudding! Ain't that lucky?
Come on, little 'un, and let's see who'll get most."

The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more
than once to come in and win, but what with his table-
spoon to my tea-spoon, his despatch to my despatch, and
his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at the
first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw
anyone enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed,
when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted
still.

Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was
then that I asked for the pen and ink and paper to write to
Peggotty. He not only brought it immediately, but was
good enough to look over me wrhile I wrote the letter.
When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to
school.

I said, " Near London, " which was all I knew.

" Oh, my eye ! " he said, looking very low-spirited, " I
am sorry for that."

"Why?" I asked him.

"Oh, Lord!" he said, shaking his head, "that's the
school where they broke the boy's ribs — two ribs- -a little
.boy he was. I should say he was — let me see — how old
are you, about? "

I told him between eight and nine

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD ^9

"That's just his age," he said. "He was eight years
and six months old when they broke his first rib ; eight
years and eight months old when they broke his second,
and did for him."

I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter,,
that this was an uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired
how it was done. His answer was not cheering to my
spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, " With whop
ping." '

The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a season*
able diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly in-
quire, in the mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse1
(which I took out of my pocket), if there were anything to
pay.

"There's a sheet of letter-paper," he returned. "Did
you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper? "
I could not remember that I ever had
"It's dear," he said, "on account of the duty. Three-
pence. That's the way we're taxed in this country.
There's nothing else, except the waiter. Never mind the
ink. /lose by that."

"What should you— what should I— how much ought I
to— what would it be right to pay the waiter, if you
please? " I stammered, blushing.

"If I hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cow-
pock," said the waiter, "I wouldn't take a sixpence. If I
didn't support a aged pairint, and a lovely sister,"— here
the waiter was greatly agitated— "I wouldn't take a farth-
ing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I
should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it.
But Hive on broken wittles— and I sleep on the coals *
— here the waiter burst into tears.

I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt
that any recognition short of ninepence would be mere
brutality and hardness of heart. Therefore I gave him one
of my three bright shillings, which he received with much
humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, di-
rectly afterwards, to try the goodness of.

It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was
being helped up behind the coach, that I was supposed to
have eaten all the dinner without any assistance. I dis-
covered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow-window
say to the guard "Take care of that child, George, 01

70 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

•he'll burst! " and from observing that the women-servants
who were about the place came out to look and giggle at
me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate friend the
waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear
'•to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration
without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him,
I suppose this half-awakened it ; but I am inclined to be-
lieve that with the simple confidence of a child, and the
natural reliance of a child upon superior years (qualities I
am very sorry any children should prematurely change for
worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the
whole, even then.

I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without
deserving it, the subject of jokes between the coachman
and guard as to the coach drawing heavy behind, on ac-
count of my sitting there, and as to the greater expediency
of my travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed
appetite getting wind among the outside passengers, they
were merry upon it likewise ; and asked me whether I was
going to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three,
and whether I was contracted for, or went upon the regular
terms; with other pleasant questions. But the worst of it
was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything,
when an opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light
dinner, I should remain hungry all night— for I had left
my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. My appre-
hensions were realised. When we stopped for supper I
couldn't muster courage to take any, though I should have
liked it very much, but sat by the fire and said I didn't
want anything. This did not save me from more jokes,
either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough face,
who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the
way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle,
said I was like a boa constrictor who took enough at one
meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually
brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef.

We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the
afternoon, and we were due in London about eight next
morning. It was midsummer weather, and the evening
was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I
pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were
like, and what the inhabitants were about ; and when boys
came running after us, and got up behind and swung there

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 71

for a little way, I wondered whether their fathers were
alive, and whether they were happy at home. I had plenty
to think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually
on the kind of place I was going to — which was an awful
speculation. Sometimes, I remember, I resigned myself
to thoughts of home and Peggotty ; and to endeavouring,
in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what
sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone:
which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, I
seemed to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity

The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got
chilly ; and being put between two gentlemen (the rough-
faced one and another) to prevent my tumbling off the
soach, I was nearly smothered by their falling asleep, and
completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard
sometimes, that I could not help crying out, " Oh, if you
please ! " — which they didn't like at all, because it woke
them. Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur
cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than
a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady
had a basket with her, and she hadn't known what to do
with it, for a long time, until she found that, on account
of my legs being short, it could go underneath me It
cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly miser-
able ; but if I moved in 'Jie least, and made a glass that
was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was
sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot,
and said, "Come, don't you fidget Your bones are young
enough i'm sure! "

At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to
sleep easier. The difficulties under which they had la-
boured all night, and which had found utterance in the most
terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be conceived. As the
sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so they
gradually one by one awoke. 1 recollect being very much
surprised by the feint everybody made, then, of not having
been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation
with which every one repelled the charge. I labour under
the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invari-
ably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to
which our common nature is the least disposed to confess
(I cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having gone to
sleep in a coach.

22 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

What an amazing place London was to me when 1 saw
it in the distance, and how I believed all the adventures of
all my favourite heroes to be constantly enacting and re-
enacting there, and how I vaguely made it out in my own
mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the
cities of the earth, I need not stop here to relate "We ap-
proached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in
the Whitechapel district, for which we were bound. I for-
get whether it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar ; but I
know it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness was
painted upon the back of the coach.

The guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down
and he said at the booking-office door :

u Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the
name of Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be
left till called for? "

Nobody answered

"Try Copperfield, if you please, Sir/' said L, looking
helplessly down.

" Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the
name of Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but
owning to the name of Copperiield, to be left till called
for? " said the guard. Come ! Is there anybody? "

No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around,
but the inquiry made no impression on any of the bystand-
ers, if I except a man in gaiters, with one eye, who sug-
gested that they had better put a brass collar round my
neck, and tie me up in the stable

A ladder was brought, and T got down after the lady
who was like a haystack: not daring to stir, until her bas-
ket was removed. The coach was clear of passengers by
that time, the luggage was very soon cleared out, the horses
had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach
itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of
the way. Still, nobody appeared, to claim the dust}
youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk

More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to
look at him and see that he was solitary, I went into the
booking-office, and, by invitation of the clerk on duty,
passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale at
which they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking
at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell
li stables (ever since associated with that morning), a pro-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

73

session of most tremendous considerations began to march
through my mind Supposing nobody should ever fetch
me, how long would they consent to keep me there?
Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings?
Should 1 sleep at night in one of those wooden bins, with
the other luggage, and wash myself at the pump in the
yard in the morning; or should I be turned out every
night, and expected to come again to be left till called for,
when the office opened next day? Supposing there was no
mistake in the case, and Mr. Mtirdstone had devised this
plan to get rid of me, what should I do? If they allowed
me to remain there until my seven shillings were spent, 1
couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve.
That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to
the customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-
was, the risk of funeral expenses If I started off at once,
and tried to walk back home, how could I ever find my
way, how could I ever hope to walk so far, how could I
make sure of any one but Peggotty, even if I got back? If
I found out the nearest proper authorities, and offered my-
self to go for a soldier, or a sailor, I was such a little fel-
low that it was most likely they wouldn't take me iu.
These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned
me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and
dismay I was in the height of my fever when a man en-
tered and whispered to the clerk, who presently slanted me
off the scale, and pushed me over to him, as if I were
weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for

As I went out of the office hand-in-hand with this new
acquaintance, I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sal-
low young man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as
black as Mr Murdstone's ; but there the likeness ended,
for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead of
being glossy, was rusty and dry He was dressed in a
suit of black clothes which were rather rusty and dry too,
and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he had a
white neck-kerchief on, that was not over-clean. I did
not, and do not, suppose that this neck -kerchief was all
linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave am
hint of.

" You're the new boy? " he -aid.

" Yes. Sir." I said.

I supposed I was. I didn't kn

74 PEKSUJNAJL, HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"I'm one of the masters at Salem House," he said.

I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. ) was
so ashamed to allude to a commonplace thing like my box,
to a scholar and a master at Salem House,- that we had
gone some little distance from the yard before I had the
hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly
insinuating that it> might be useful to me hereafter: and he
told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for
it at noon.

" If you please, Sir," I said, when we had aceomplisheG
about the same distance as before, " is it far? "

"It's down by Blackheath," he said.

" Is that far, Sir? » I diffidently asked.

" It's a good step," he said " We shall go by the stage
coach. It's about six miles."

I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for
six miles more was too much for me. I took heart to tell
him that I had had nothing all night, and that if he would
allow me to buy something to eat I should be very much
obliged to him. He appeared surprised at this — I see him
stop and look at me now — and after considering for a few
moments said he wanted to call on an old person who lived
not far off, and that the best way would be for me to buy
some bread, or whatever I liked best that was wholesome,
and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get
some milk.

Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after
I had made a series of proposals to buy everything that
was bilious in the shop, and he had rejected them one by
one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown
bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer's shop,
we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon ; which still
left what I thought a good deal of change, out of the sec-
ond of the bright shillings, and made me consider London
a very cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went on
through a great noise and uproar that confused my weary
head beyond description, and over a bridge which, no
doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I think he told me so,
but I was half asleep), until we came to the poor person's
house, which was a part of some almshouses, as I knew by
their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate,
which said they were established for twenty-five poor
women

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 75

The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of <*,
aumber of little black doors that were all alike, and had
each a little diamond-paned window on one side, and an-
other little diamond-paned window above; and we went
into the little house of one of these poor old women, who
was blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. On see-
ing the Master enter, the old woman stopped with the bel-
lows on her knee, and said something that I thought
sounded like " My Charley ! " but on seeing me come u
too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused
sort of half -curtsey

''Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for
nun, if you please? " said the Master at Salem House

"Can I? " said the old woman "Yes can I, sure! "

"How's Mrs. Fibbitson to-day?" said the Master, look-
ing at another old woman in a large chair by the fire, who
was such a bundle of clothes that I feel grateful to this
hour for Dot having sat upon her by mistake

"Ah, she's poorly," said the first old woman. "It's
one of her bad days. If the fire was to go out, through
any accident, I verily believe she'd go out too, and never
come to life again."

As they looked at her, I looked at her also Although
it was a warm day, she seemed to think of nothing but the
fire I fancied she was jealous even of the saucepan on it;
and I have reason to know that she took its impressment
into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon,
in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes,
shake hei fist at me once, when those culinary operations
were going on, and no one else was looking. The sun
streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own
back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening
the fire as if she were sedulously keeping it warm, instead
of it keeping her warm, and watching it in a most distrust-
ful manner The completion of the preparations for my
oreakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her such extreme joy
that she laughed aloud — and a very mi melodious laugh she
had, I must say

I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of
bacon, with a basin of milk besides, and made a most de-
licious meal While I was yet in the full enjoyment of it,
".he old woman of the house said to the Master

u Have you <?ot your flute with you? "

76 PERSONAL H1STOR* AND EXPERIENCE

" Yes," he returned.

"Have a blow at it,* said the old woman, coaxingly
"Do!"

The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the
skirts of his coat, and brought out his flute in three pieces,
which he screwed together, and began immediately to play.
My impression is, after many years of consideration, that
there never can have been anybody in the world who
played worse He made the most dismal sounds I have
ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial. I
don't know what the tunes were — if there were such things
in the performance at all, wrhich I doubt — but the influence
of the strain upon me was, first, to make me think of all
my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back ; then
to take away my appetite ; and lastly, to make me so sleepy
that I couldn't keep my eyes open. They begin to close
again, and I begin to nod, as the recollection rises fresh
upon me. Once more the little room, with its open corner
cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular
little staircase leading to the room above, and its three
peacock's feathers displayed over the mantelpiece — I re-
member wondering when I first went in, what that peacock
would have thought if he had known what his finery was
doomed to come to — fades from before me, and I nod, and
sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the
coach are heard instead, and I am on my journey The
coach jolts, I wake with a start, and the flute has come
back again, and the Master at Salem House is sitting with
his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman
of the house looks on delighted. She fades in her turn,
and he fades, and all fades, and there is no flute, no Mas*
ter, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything
but heavy sleep.

I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing
into this dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who
had gone nearer and nearer to him in her ecstatic achnira-
tion, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him an
affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his play-
ing for a moment I was in the middle state between
sleeping and waking, either then or immediately after-
wards; for, as he resumed— it was a real fact that he had
stopped playing — I saw and heard the same old woman
ask Mrs Fibbitson if it wasn't delicious (meaning the

OP DAVID COPPERFLELD. H

flute), to which Mrs. Fibbitson replied, "Ay, ay! yes!"
and nodded at the fire : to which, I am persuaded, she gave
the credit of the whole performance.

When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the
Master at Salem House unscrewed his flute into the three
pieces, put them up as before, and took me away. We
found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the roof ;
but I was so dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road
to take up somebody else, they put me inside where there
were no passengers, and where I slept profoundly, until 1
found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among
green leaves Presently, it stopped, and had come to its
destination.

A short walk brought us — I mean the Master and me —
to Saleni House, which w*s enclosed with a high brick
wall, and looked very dull. Over a door in this wall was
a board with Salem House upon it; and through a grating
in this door we were surveyed, when we rang the bell, by
a surly face, which I found, on the door being opened, be-
longed to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, over-
hanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head.

"The new boy," said the Master.

The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over — it
didn't take long, for there was not much of me — and locked
the gate behind us, and took out the key. We were going
up to the house, among some dark heavy trees, when ho
called after my conductor.

" Hallo!"

We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a
little lodge, where he lived, with a pair of boots in his
hana.

'•Here! The cobbler's been," he said, "since you've
been out, Mr. Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any
more. He says there an't a bit of the original boot left,
and he wonders you expect it."

With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell,
who went back a few paces to pick them up, and looked at.
them (very disconsolately, I was afraid) as we went on
together. I observed then, for the first time, that the
boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and
that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like
a bud

Salem House was a square brick building with wings j of

78 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

a bare and unfurnished appearance. All about it was s*
very quiet, that I said to Mr. Mell I supposed the boys
were out ; but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that
it was holiday-time. That all the boys were at their sev-
eral homes. That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down
by the sea-side with Mrs and Miss Creakle; and that I
was sent in holiday -time as a punishment for my misdoing,
all of which he explained to me as we went along.

I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as
che most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see
it now. A long room, with three long rows of desks, and
six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and
slates, Scraps of old copybooks and exercises litter the
dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made of the same
materials, are scattered over the desks. Two miserable
little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running
up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and
wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for any-
thing to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger than him-
self, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on
his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it ; but neither
sings nor chirps. There is a strange uuwholesonie smell
upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples
wanting air, and rotten books. There could not well be
more ink splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its
first construction, and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed,
and blown ink through the varying seasons of the year

Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable
boots up-stairs, I went softly to the upper end of the room,
observing all this as I crept along. Suddenly I came upon
a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, which was lying
on the desk, and bor» these words — " Take care of him.
He bites. "

I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at
least a great dog underneath. But, though I looked all
round with anxious eyes, I could see nothing of him. I
was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell canie
back, and asked me what I did up there.

"I beg your pardon, Sir," says I, "if you please. I'm
looking for the dog."

"Dog? * says he " What door? "

44 Isn't it a dog, Sir? *

"Isn't what a dog? '

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 79

"That's to be taken care of, Sir; that bites."

* No, Copperfield, " says he gravely, " that' s not a dog.
That's a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put
this placard on your back. I am sorry to make such a be-
ginning with you, but I must do it. "

With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which
was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders
like a knapsack ; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had
the consolation of carrying it.

What 1 suffered from that placard nobody can imagine.
Whether it was possible for people to see me cr not, 1
always fancied that somebody was reading it. It was no
relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my
back was, there I imagined somebody always to be. That
cruel man with the wooden leg, aggravated my sufferings.
He was in authority ; and if he ever saw me leaning against
a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his
lodge-door in a stupendous voice, "Hallo, you Sir! You
Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I'll report
you ! " The playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to
all the back of the house and the offices ; and I knew that
fche servants read it, and the butcher read it, and the baker
read it ; that everybody, in a word, who came backwards
and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was or-
dered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care of,
for I bit. I recollect that I positively began to have a
dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite.

There was an old door in this playground, on which the
ooys had a custom of carving their names. It was com-
pletely covered with such inscriptions. In my dread of
the end of the vacation and their coming back, I could not
read a boy's name, without inquiring in what tone and
with what emphasis he would read, "Take care of him.
He bites." There was one boy — a certain J. Steerforth —
who cut his name very deep and very often, who, I con-
ceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, and after-
wards pull my hair There was another boy, one Tommy
Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, and pre-
tend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third,
u-eorge Demple, who I fancied would sing it 1 have
looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the
owners of all the names — there were five-and-forty of them
in the school then, Mr Mell said — seemed to send me to

60 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Coventry by general acclamation, and to cry out, each ii
his own way, "Take care of him He bites! "

It was the same with the places at the desks and forms
It was the same with the groves of deserted bedsteads 1
peeped at, on my way to, and when I was in, my own bed.
I remember dreaming night after night, of being with my
mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr
Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of
dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and
ui all these circumstances making people scream and stare,
by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my
little night-shirt, and that placard.

In the monotony of my life, and in my constant appre-
hension of the reopening of the school, it was such an in-
supportable affliction ! I had long tasks every day to do
with Mr. Mell ; but I did them, there being no Mr. and
Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without dis-
grace Before, and after them, I walked about — super-
vised, as 1 have mentioned, by the man with the wooden
leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the
house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old
leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the
grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain
than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At
one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long
bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat.
Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank
out of a blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot All day long,
and until seven or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his
own detached desk in the schoolroom, worked hard with
pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out the
bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put up
lis things for the night, he took out his flute, and blew at
it, until I almost thought he would gradually blow his
whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away
at the keys

I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sit-
ting with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful
performance of Mr. Mell, and conning to-morrow's lessons
I picture myself with my books shut up, still listening to
the doleful, performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through
it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the
wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.

rtSd these aspects, but in all of them I earned

%T4S SS me, but he was neve, harsh
to me ' I suppose we were company to eadx other, *£bonft
Siting I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself
lorn thi.es and grin, and clench ^^^^
tooth and Bull his hair in an unaccountable manner Bai
he had Ihcr^culiarities : and at first they frightened me,
though I soon got used to them

CHAPTER VI

1 ENLARGE JIT CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE

I HlB led this life about a month, when the man with
the wooden le- began to stump about with a mop and a

Sw&A. A- -W-V ^anV^b'oTt Ta

3h£h « always in the way of two or three young

women who had ^^y%£%J$2J&

were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezea
Jmost as mth as if Salem House had been a great snuff-

b°Onc day 1 was informed by Mr. Mell, that Mr Creakle
would be home that evening. In the evening, after tea, I
heard that he was come. Before bed-tame I was tched
b the man with the wooden leg to appear before hum

82 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal inert
comfortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden
that looked pleasant after the dusty playground, which was
such a desert in miniature, that I thought no one but a
camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It
seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the
passage looked comfortable, as I went on my way, trem-
bling, to Mr. Creakle's presence: which so abashed me,
when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. Creakle
or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlour), or
anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch
of watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler
and bottle beside him.

" So ! " said Mr. Creakle. " This is the young gentleman
whose teeth are to be filed! Turn him round."

The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit
the placard ; and having afforded time for a full survey of
it, turned me about again, with my face to Mr. Creakle,
and posted himself at Mr. Creakle's side. Mr. Creakle's
face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his
head ; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and
a large chin. He was bald on the top of his head ; and had
some thin wet-looking hair that was just turning grey,
brushed across each temple, so that the two sides inter-
laced on his forehead. But the circumstance about him
which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but
spoke in a whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the
consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry
face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much
thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on look-
ing back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one.

"Now," said Mr. Creakle. "What's the report of this
boy? "

"There's nothing against him yet," returned the man
with the wooden leg. " There has been no opportunity. "

I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought
Mrs. and Miss Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the
first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not
disappointed

"Come here, Sir! " said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me,

" Come here ! " said the man with the wooden leg, re«
peating the gesture.

"I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-tew-*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 83

whispered Mr. Creakle, taking me by the ear; "and a
worthy man he is, and a man of a strong character. He
knows me, and I know him. Do you know me? Hey? "
said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playful-
ness.

"Not yet, Sir," I said, flinching with the pain.

"Not yet? Hey?" repeated Mr. Creakle. "But you
will soon. Hey?"

'•You wiL1 soon. Hey?" repeated the man with the
wooden leg. I afterwards found that he generally acted,
with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle' s interpreter to the boys.

I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he
pleased. I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing;
he pinched it so hard.

" I'll tell you what I am," whispered Mr. Creakle, letting
it go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water
into my eyes, "I'm a Tartar."

"A Tartar," said the man with the wooden leg.

" When I say I'll do a thing, I do it," said Mr. Creakle;
•'and when I say I will have a thing done, I will have it
done."

- — Will have a thing done, I will have it done," re-
peated the man with the wooden leg.

k- 1 am a determined character," said Mr. Creakle.
"That's what I am. I do my duty. That's what / do.
My flesh and blood — " he looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said
this — "when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood.
I discard it. Has that fellow," to the man with the
wooden leg, "been here again?"

"Noj" was the answer.

"No," said Mr. Creakle. "He knows better. He
knows me. Let him keep away. I say let him keep
away," said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon the table,
and looking at Mrs. Creakle, " for he knows me. Now you
have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may
go. Take him away."

I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss
Creakle were both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncom-
fortable for them as I did for myself. But I had a peti-
tion on my mind which concerned me so nearly, that I
couldn't help saying, though I wondered at my own cour-
age:

* If you please, Sir "

84 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Creakle whispered, "Hah? What's this?" and
bent his eyes upon me, as if he would have burnt me up
with them,

" If you please, Sir," I faltered, " if I might be allowed
(I am very sorry indeed, Sir, for what I did) to take this-
writing off, before the boys come back "

Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only
did it to frighten me, I don't know, but he made a burst
out of his chair, before which I precipitately retreated,
without waiting for the escort of the man with the wooden
leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own bed-
room, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as
it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours.

Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was
the first master, and superior to Mr. Me 11. Mr. Mell took
his meals with the boys, but Mr. Sharp dined and supped
at Mr, Creakle' s table. He was a limp, delicate-looking
gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way
of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too
heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy ; but
I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it
was a wig (a second-hand one he said), and that Mr. Sharp
went out every Satarday afternoon to get it curled

It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this
piece of intelligence. He was the first boy who returned.
He introduced himself by informing me that I should find
his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top
bolt; upon that I said, "Traddles?" to wrhich he replied,
" The same," and then he asked me for a full account of
myself and family

It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came
back first. He enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved
me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or conceal-
ment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back,
great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of
introduction, "Look here! Here's a game!" Happily,
too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited,
and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected.
Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild
Indians, and the greater part could not resist the tempta-
tion of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and
smoothing me lest I should bite, and saying, "Lie down.
Sir ! " and calling me Towzer. This was naturally conf us-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 85

ing, among so many strangers, and cost me some tears, but
on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated.

I was not considered as being formally received into the
school, however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this
boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very
good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I
was carried as before a magistrate. He inquired, under a
shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punish-
ment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was
* a jolly shame ;" for which I became bound to him ever
afterwards.

"What money have you got, Copperfield?" he saic..,
walking aside with me when he had disposed of my affair
in these terms.

I told him seven shillings

" You had better give it to me to take care of," he said..
"At least, you can if you like You needn't if you don't
like."

I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and
opening Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his
hand.

"Do you want to spend anything now? " he asked me

"No, thank you," I replied.

"'You can if you like, you know," said Steerforth.
"Say the word."

"No, thank you, Sir," I repeated.

"Perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so,
in a bottle of currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom? "
said Steerforth. " You belong to my bedroom, I find."

It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said,
Yes, I should like that.

" Very good," said Steerforth. " You'll be glad to spend
another shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say? "

I said, Yes, I should like that, too.

" And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in
fruit, eh? " said Steerforth. " I say, young Copperfield,
you're going it! "

I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in
my mind, too.

" Well! " said Steerforth " We must make it stretch as
far as we can; that's all. I'll do the best in my power for
you. I can go out when I like, and I'll smuggle the prog
in," With these words he put the money in his pocket,

36 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy ; lie would
take care it should be all right.

He was as good as his word, if that were all right which
I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong — for I feared
it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns — though I
had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in :
which was a precious saving. When we went up-stairs to
bed, he produced the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid
it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying :

" There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread
you've got!"

I couldn't think of doing the honours of the feast, at my
time of life, while he was by ; my hand shook at the very
thought of it. I begged him to do me the favour of presid-
ing ; and my request being seconded by the other boys who
were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pil-
low, handing round the viands — with perfect fairness, I
must say — and dispensing the currant wine in a little glass
without a foot, which was his own property. As to me, I
sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on
the nearest beds and on the floor.

How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whis-
pers; or their talking, and my respectfully listening, I
ought rather to say ; the moonlight falling a little way into
the room, through the window, painting a pale window on
the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when
Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorus-box, when he
wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue
glare over us that was gone directly ! A certain mysterious
feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the
revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals
over me again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague
feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that
they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to
laugh) when Traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner.

I heard all kinds of things about the school and all be-
longing to it. I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred
his claim to being a Tartar without reason ; that he was the
sternest and most severe of masters ; that he laid about him,
right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the
boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully
That he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing,
being more ignorant (J. Steerforth said) than the lowest

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 87

boy in the school ; that he had been, a good many years
ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had taken to
the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and
making away with Mrs. Creakle's money. With a good
deal more of that sort, which I wondered how they knew.

I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name
was Tungay, was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly
assisted in the hop business, but had come into the scho-
lastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was sup-
posed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr.
Creakle's service, and having clone a deal of dishonest work
for him, and knowing his secrets. I heard that with the
single exception of Mr. Creakle, Tungay considered the
whole establishment, masters and boys, as his natural
enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be
sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son,
who had not been Tungay' s friend, and who, assisting in
the school, had once held some remonstrance with his
father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruelly
exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested
against his father's usage of his mother. I heard that Mr.
Creakle had turned him out of doors, in consequence; and
that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had been in a sad way, ever
since.

But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was,
there being one boy in the school on whom he never ven-
tured to lay a hand, and that boy being J. Steerforth.
Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated, and
said that he should like to begin to see him do it. ' On
being asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed
if he did begin to see him do it, he dipped a match into his
phosphorus-box on purpose to shed a glare over his reply,
and said he would commence by knocking him down with
a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-
bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the
dark for some time, breathless.

I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed
to be wretchedly paid ; and that when there was hot and
cold meat for dinner at Mr. Creakle's table, Mr. Sharp was
always expected to say he preferred cold ; which was again
corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlour-boarder. I
heard that Mr. Sharp's wig didn't fit him; and that he
needn't be so ''bounceable" — somebody else said "bump*

88 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

tious " — about it, because his own red hair was very plainly
to be seen behind.

I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant' s son,
came as a set-off against the coal-bill, and was called, on
that account, "Exchange or Barter"— a name selected from
the arithmetic-book as expressing this arrangement. I
heard that the table-beer was a robbery of parents, and the
pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was re-
garded by the school in general as being in love with Steer-
forth ; and I am sure, as I sat in the dark, thinking of his
nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his
curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that Mr.
Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to
bless himself with ; and that there was no doubt that old
Mrs. Mell, his mother, was as X->oor as Job. I thought of
my breakfast then, and what had sounded like " My
Charley ! " but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as a
mouse about it.

The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted
the banquet some time. The greater part of the guests had
gone to bed as soon as the eating and drinking were over;
and we, who had remained whispering and listening half
undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too.

" Good night, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, il I'll
take care of you."

" You're very kind," I gratefully returned. " I am very
much obliged to you."

" You haven't got a sister, have you? " said Steerforth,
yawning.

"No," I answered.

" That's a pity," said Steerforth. " If you had had one.
I should think she would have been a pretty, timid, little,
bright-eyed sort of girl. I should have liked to know hei
Good night, young Copperfield."

" Good night, Sir," I replied.

I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised
myself, I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moon-
light, with his handsome face turned up, and his head
reclining easily on his arm He was a person of great power
in my eyes ; that was, of course, the reason of my mind run-
ning on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him ir
the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his foot'
steps, in the garden that I dreamed of walking in all night

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 89

CHAPTER Vll

MY "FIRST HALF" AT SALEM HOUSE.

School began in earnest next day. A profound impres*
sion was made upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices
in the schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as death when
Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and stood in the door-
way looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book
surveying his captives.

Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle' s elbow. He Iiad no occa-
sion, I thought, to cry out " Silence ! " so ferociously, for
the boys were all struck speechless and motionless.

Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to
this effect.

" Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you're
about, in this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I
advise you, for I come fresh up to the punishment. I won't
flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing yourselves ; you
won't rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get to
work, every boy ! "

When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had
stumped out again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and
told me that if I were famous for biting, he was famous for
biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and asked me
what I thought of that, for a tooth? "Was it a sharp tooth,
hey? Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep prong,
hey? Did it bite, hey? Did it bite? At every question
he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe ; so I
was very soon made free of Salem House (as Steerf orth said),
and very soon in tears also.

Not that I mean to say these were special marks of dis-
tinction, which only I received. On the contrary, a large
majority of the boys (especially the smaller ones) were
visited with similar instances of notice, as Mr. Creakle made
the round of the schoolroom. Half the establishment was
writhing and crying, before the day's work began; and how
much of it had writhed and cried before the day's work was
over, I am really afraid to recollect, lest I should seem to
exaggerate

9C PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I should think there never can have been a man who
enjoyed his profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had
a delight in cutting at the boys, which was like the satisfac-
tion of a craving appetite. I am confident that he couldn't
resist a chubby boy, especially ; that there was a fascination
in such a subject, which made him restless in his mind, until
he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby
myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think of the
fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested
indignation I should feel if I could have known all about
him without having ever been in his power ; but it rises hotly,
because I know him to have been an incapable brute, who
had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held,
than to be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief: in
either of which capacities, it is probable that he would have
done infinitely less mischief.

Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how
abject we were to him ! What a launch in life I think it
now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of
such parts and pretensions !

Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye — humbly
watching his eye, as he rules a ciphering-book for another
victim whose hands have just been flattened by that identical
ruler, and who is trying to wipe the sting out with a pocket-
handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don't watch his eye
in idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a
dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it
will be my turn to suffer, or somebody else's. A lane of
small boys beyond me, with the same interest in his eye,
watch it too. I think he knows it, though he pretends he
don't. He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the ciphering-
book ; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane,
and we all droop over our books and tremble. A moment
afterwards we are again eyeing him. An unhappy culprit,
found guilty of imperfect exercise, approaches at his com-
mand. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a deter-
mination to do better to-morrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke
before he beats him, and we laugh at it, — miserable little
dogs, we laugh, with our visages as white as ashes, and our
hearts sinking into our boots.

Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer after-
noon. &. buzz and hum go up around me, as if the boys
were so many blue-bottles. A cloggy sensation of the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 9i

lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hoar or two
ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I would
give the world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr.
Creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep
overpowers me for a minute, he still looms through my
slumber, ruling those ciphering-books ; until he softly comes
behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with
a red ridge across my back.

Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated
by him, though I can't see him. The window at a little
distance from which I know he is having his dinner, stands
for him, and I eye that instead. If he shows his face near
it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression.
If he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerf orth
excepted) stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes
contemplative. One day, Traddles (the most unfortunate
boy in the world) breaks that window accidentally, with a
ball. I shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensa-
tion of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded
on to Mr. Creakle' s sacred head.

Poor Traddles ! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his
arms and legs like German sausages, or roly-poly puddings,
he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. He
was always being caned — I think he was caned every day
that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was
only ruler' d on both hands — and was always going to write
to his uncle about it, and never did. After laying his head
on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, somehow,
begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate,
before his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what
comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons ; and for some
time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded
himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn't
last for ever. But I believe he only did it because they were
easy, and didn't want any features.

He was very honourable, Traddles was, and held it as a
solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. He
suffered for this on several occasions ; and particularly once,
when Steerforth laughed in church, and the beadle thought
it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, going
away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never
said who was the real offender, though he smarted for it
next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came

92 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

forth with a whole churchyard-full of skeletons ^warming
ail over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward
Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles.
and we all felt that to be the highest praise. For uiy part,
I could have gone through a good deal (though I was much
less brave than Traddles, and nothing like so old) to have
won such a recompense.

To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm
with Miss Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life.
I didn't think Miss Creakle equal to little Eni'ly in point
of beauty, an(l I didn't love her (I didn't dare) ; but I
thought her a young lady of extraordinary attractions, and
in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When Steerforth,
in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud
to know him ; and believed that she could not choose but
adore him with all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were
both notable personages in my eyes ; but Steerforth was to
them what the sun was to two stars

Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a
very useful friend, since nobody dared to annoy one whom
he honoured with his countenance. He couldn't — or, at all
events, he didn't — defend me from Mr. Creakle, who was
very severe with me ; but whenever I had been treated worse
than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of hi?
pluck, and that he wouldn't have stood it himself; which 1
felt he intended for encouragement, and considered to be
very kind of him. There was one advantage, and only one
that I know of, in Mr. Creakle' s severity. He found my
placard in his way, when he came up or down behind the
form on which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in
passing ; for this reason it was soon taken off, and I saw it
no more.

An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy be-
tween Steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with
great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to
inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was
doing me the honour of talking to me in the playground, that
I hazarded the observation that something or somebody — I
forget what now — was like something or somebody in Pere-
grine Pickle. He said nothing at the time ; but when I wao
going to bed at night, asked me if I had got that book.

I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read
it, and all those other book** of which T have made mentis

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 93

u And do you recollect them? " Steerforth said.

Oh yes, I replied ; I had a good memory, and I believed
I recollected them very well.

"Then I tell you what, young Copperfield," said Steer-
forth, "you shall tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very
early at night, and I generally wake rather early in the
morning. We'll go over 'em one after another. We'll
make some regular Arabian Nights of it."

I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we
commenced carrying it into execution that very evening.
What ravages I committed on my favourite authors in the
course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition
to say, and should be very unwilling to know ; but I had a
profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief,
a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate ;
and these qualities went a long way,

The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or
out of spirits and indisposed to resume the story ; and then
it was rather hard work, and it must be done; for to
disappoint or to displease Steerforth was of course out of
the question. In the morning too, when I felt weary, and
should have enjoyed another hour's repose very much, it
was a tiresome thing to be roused, like the Sultana Sche-
herazade, and forced into a long story before the getting-up
bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute ; and as he explained
to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in
my tasks that was too hard for me, I was no loser by the
transaction. Let me do myself justice, however. I was
moved by no interested or selfish motive, nor was I moved
by fear of him. I admired and loved him, and his approval
was return enough. It was so precious to me, that I look
back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart.

Steerforth was considerate too, and showed his consider
ation, in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner
that was a little tantalising, I suspect, to poor Traddles and
the rest. Peggotty's promised letter — what a comfortable
letter it was— arrived before "the half" was many weeks
old ; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two
bottles of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty bound,
I laid at the feet of Steerforth, and begged him to dispense.

"Now, I'll tell you what, young Copperfield," said he:
"the wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are
story -telling."

94 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty,
not to think of it But ne said he had observed I was
sometimes hoarse— a little roopy was his exact expression —
and it should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had
mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and
drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me
through a piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed
to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it a
more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange
juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a
peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot assert that
the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it
was exactly the compound one would have chosen for a
stomachic, the last thing at night and the first thing in the
morning, I drank it gratefully, and was very sensible of his
attention.

We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and
months more over the other stories. The institution never
flagged for want of a story, I am certain; and the wine
lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor Traddles —
I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to
laugh, and with tears in my eyes — was a sort of chorus, in
general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the
comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was
any passage of an alarming character in the narrative.
This rather put me out, very often. It was a great jest of
his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth
from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazil
in connexion with the adventures of Gil Bias ; and I remem-
ber that, when Gil Bias met the captain of the robbers in
Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an ague of
terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was
prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for
disorderly conduct in the bedroom.

Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy,
was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and
in that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable
to me. But the being cherished as a kind of plaything in
my room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment
of mine was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a,
good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest there,,
stimulated me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer
cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 95

is not likely to be much learnt. I believe our boys were,
generally, as ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence ;
they were too much troubled and knocked about to learn ;
they could no more do that to advantage, than any one can
do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune,
torment, and worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth' s
help, urged me on somehow ; and without saving me from
much, if anything, in the way of punishment, made me, for
the time I was there, an exception to the general body,
insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of
knowledge.

In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking
for me that I am grateful to remember. It always gave me
pain to observe that Steerforth treated him with systematic
disparagement, and seldom lost an occasion of wounding his
feelings, or inducing others to do so. This troubled me the
more for a long time, because I had soon told Steerforth,
from whom I could no more keep such a secret than I could
keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two
old women Mr. Mell had taken me to see ; and I was always
afraid that Steerforth would let it out, and twit him with
it.

We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate
my breakfast that first morning, and went to sleep under
the shadow of the peacock's feathers to the sound of the
flute, what consequences would come of the introduction
into those almshouses of my insignificant person. But the
visit had its unforeseen consequences ; and of a serious sort,
too, in their way.

One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indispo-
sition, which naturally diffused a lively joy through the
school, there was a good deal of noise in the course of the
morning's work. The great relief and satisfaction experi-
enced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and
though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice
or inrice, and took notes of the principal offenders' names,
•uo great impression was made by it, as they were pretty
sure of getting into trouble to-morrow, do what they would,
and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves to-day

{X: was, properly, a half -holiday ; being Saturday But
^s the noise in the playground would have disturbed Mr.
Or^akle, and the weather was net favourable for going out
walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and

96 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for the
occasion. It was the day of the week on which Mr. Sharp
went out to get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who always
did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept school by himself.

If I could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with any
one so mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in connexion
with that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of
one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall
him bending his aching head, supported on his bony hand,
over the book on his desk, and wretchedly endeavouring tc
get on with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar that might
have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy
Boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss
in-the-comer with other boys ; there were laughing boys,
singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys;
boys shumed with their feet, boys whirled about him,
grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and
before his eyes : mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat,
his mother, everything belonging to him that they should
have had consideration for.

" Silence ! " cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and
striking his desk with the book. "What does this mean!
It's impossible to bear it. It's maddening. How can you
do it to me, boys? "

It was my book that he struck his desk with ; and as I
stood beside him, following his eye as it glanced round the
room, I saw the boys all stop, some suddenly surprised,
some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps.

Steerforth's place was at the bottom of the school, at
the opposite end of the long room. He was lounging with
his back against the wall, and his hands in his pockets, and
looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were
whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him.

" Silence, Mr. Steerf orth ! " said Mr. Mell

u Silence yourself," said Steerf orth, turning red. " Whom
are you talking to? "

" Sit down," said Mr. Mell.

"Sit down yourself," said Steerf orth, "and mind youi
business."

There was a titter, and some applause -, but Mr. Mell was
so white, that silence immediately succeeded; and one boy.
who had darted out behind him to imitate his mother again,
changed his mind, and pretended to want a pen mended.

OF DAVIP C'OPPERFIELD. &

"If you think, Steerf orth, " said Mr. Mell, "that I am
not acquainted with the power you can establish over any
mind here "—he laid his hand, without considering what he
did (as I supposed), upon my head-" or that I have not
observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on
to every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken.

" I don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about
you," said Steerforth, coolly; "so I'm not mistaken, as it
happens." . . . .

k- And when you make use of your position of favouritism
here, Sir," pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very
much, " to insult a gentleman "

" A what?— where is he? " said Steerforth.

Here somebody cried out, "Shame, J. Steerforth! loo
bad S " It was Traddles ; whom Mr. Mell instantly discom-
fited by bidding him hold his tongue. . .

— " To insult one who is not fortunate m life, bir, ana
who never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons-
for not insulting whom you are old enough and wise enough
to understand," said Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling more
and more, "you commit a mean and base action, lou can
sit down or stand up as you please, Sir. Copperfleld, go

DI1" Young Copperfield," said Steerforth, coming forward up
the room, " stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for
all. When you take the liberty of calling me mean or base,
or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. \ ou
are always a beggar, you know ; but when you do that, you
are an impudeut beggar."

I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell,
or Mi. Mell was going to strike him, or there was any such
intention on either side. I saw a rigidity come upon the
whole school as if they had been turned into stone, and
found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, with Tun gay at his
side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at the door as it
they were frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk
and his face in his hands, sat, for some moments, quite still.

"Mr. Mell," said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm;
and his whisper was so audible now, that Tungay felt it
unnecessary to repeat his words: "you have not forgotten
yourself, I hope? " . . ,

" Xo, Sir, no," returned the Master, showing his face, and
shaking his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation.

08 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"No, Sir. No. I have remembered myself, I — no, Mr.
Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, I — I have remembered
myself, Sir. I — I — could wish you had remembered ms a
little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It — it — would have been more
kind, Sir, more just, Sir. It would have saved me some-
thing, Sir."

Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on
Tungay's shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by,
and sat upon the desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell
from this throne, as he shook his head, and rubbed his hands,
and remained in the same state of agitation, Mr. Creakle
turned to Steerf orth, and said :

"Now, Sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what is
this?"

Steerf orth evaded the question for a little while ; looking
in scorn and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent.
I could not help thinking even in that interval, I remember,
what a noble fellow he was in appearance, and how homely
and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him.

" What did he mean by talking about favourites, then? "
said Steerforth, at length.

"Favourites?" repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in
his forehead swelling quickly. " Who talked' about favour-
ites? "

" He did," said Steerf orth. .

" And pray, what did you mean by that, Sir? " demanded
Mr. Creakle, turning angrily on his assistant.

"I meant, Mr. Creakle," he returned in a low voice, "as
I said ; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his
position of favouritism to degrade me."

" To degrade you ? " said Mr. Creakle. " My stars ! But
give me leave to ask you, Mr. What's-your-naine ;" and here
Mr. Creakle folded his arms, cane and all, upon his chest,
and made such a knot of his brows that his little eyes were
hardly visible below them ; " whether, when you talk about
favourites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, Sir,"
said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and
drawing it back again, " the principal of this establishment,
and your emploj^er. "

" It was not judicious, Sir, I am willing to admit," said
Mr. Mell. " I should not have done so, if I had been cool."

Here Steerforth struck in.

" Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 99

and then I called him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps
I shouldn't have called him a beggar. But I did, and I am
ready to take the consequences of it."

Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any
consequences to be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gal-
lant speech. It made an impression on the boys too, for
there was a low stir among them, though no one spoke a
word.

" I am surprised, Steerforth — although your candour does
you honour," said Mr. Creakle, " does you honour, certainly
— I am surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that you should
attach such an epithet to any person employed and paid in
Salem House, Sir."

Steerforth gave a short laugh.

"That's not an answer, Sir," said Mr. Creakle, "to my
remark. I expect more than that from you, Steerforth."

If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the
handsome boy, it would be quite impossible to say how
homely Mr. Creakle looked.

" Let him deny it," said Steerforth.

"Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?" cried Mr.
Creakle. " Why, where does he go a begging? "

" If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one,""
said Steerforth. "It's all the same."

He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me
upon the shoulder. I looked up, with a flush upon my face
and remorse in my heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on
Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder,,
but he looked at him.

" Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself ,"*
said Steerforth, " and to sa\ what I mean, — what I have to
say is, that his mother lives on charity in an almshouse."

Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly
on the shoulder, and said to himself in a whisper, if I heard
right: "Yes, I thought so."

Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown
and laboured politeness.

"Now you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell.
Have the goodness, if you please, to set him .right before-
the assembled ychool."

"'He is right, Sir, without correction," returned Mr. Mell,
in the midst of a dead silence ; " what he has said, is true.'*

" Be so good then as declare publicly, will you," said Mr.

100 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes
round the school, " whether it ever came to my knowledge
until this moment? "

" I believe not directly," he returned.

" Why, you know not," said Mr. Creakle. " Don't you>
man? "

" I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circum*
tances to to be very good," replied the assistant. "You
know what my position is, and always has been, here."

" I apprehend, if you come to that," said Mr. Creakle,
with his veins swelling again bigger than ever, " that you've
been in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a
charity school. Mr. Mell, we'll part, if you please. The
sooner the better."

" There is no time," answered Mr. Mell, rising, " like the
present."

" Sir, to you! " said Mr. Creakle.

" I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and of all of you,"
said Mr. Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting
me gently on the shoulder, "James Steerforth, the best
wish I can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed
of what you have done to-day. At present I would prefer-
to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to any
one in whom I feel an interest."

Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then
taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving
the key in it for his successor, he went out of the school,
with his property under his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a
speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked Steerforth for
asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence
and respectability of Salem House ; and which he wound
up by snaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three
cheers — I did not quite know what for, but I supposed for
Steerforth, and so joined i them ardently, though I felt
miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for
being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of
Mr. Mell's departure ; and went back to his scfa, or his bed,
or wherever he had come from

We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I
recollect, on one another. For myself, I felt so much self-
reproach and contrition for my part in what had happened,
that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears
but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 101

might think it unfriendly — or, I should rather say, consid-
ering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded
him, undutiful — if I showed the emotion which distressed
me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he was
glad he had caught it.

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage ol lying with
his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual
with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr Meil
was ill-used.

" Who has ill-used him, you girl? " said Steerforth

" Why, you have," returned Traddles.

" What have I done? " said Steerforth.

" What have you done? " retorted Traddles. " Hurt nis
feelings, and lost him his situation."

" His feelings ! " repeated Steerforth disdainfully. " His
feelings will soon get the better of it, I'll be bound.
His feelings are not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to
his situation — which was a precious one, wasn't it? — do
you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care
that he gets some money? Polly? "

We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose
mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost
anything, it was said, that he asked her. We were all
extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted
Steerforth to the skies : especially when he told us, as he
condescended to do, that what he had done had been done
expressly for us, and for our cause, and that he had conferred
a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it.

But I must say that when I was going on with a story in
the dark that night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than
once to sound mournfully in my ears ; and that when at last
Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied
it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite
wretched.

I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who,
in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed
to me to know everything by heart), took some of his
classes until a new master was found. The new master
came from a grammar-school, and before he entered on his
duties, dined in the parlour one day, to be introduced to
Steerforth Steerforth approved of him highly, and told
us he was a Brick. Without exactly understanding what
learned distinction was meant by this, I respected him

102 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior
knowledge : though he never took the pains with me — w >:
that / was anybody — that Mr. Mell had taken.

There was only one other event in this half-year, out of
the daily school-life, that made an impression upon me which
still survives. It survives for many reasons.

One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state
of dire confusion, and Mr. Creakle was laying about him
dreadfully, Tungay came in, and called out in his usual
strong way : " Visitors for Copperfield ! "

A few words were interchanged between him and Mr.
Creakle, as, who the visitors were, and what room they were
to be shown into ; and then I, who had, according to custom,
stood up on the announcement being made, and felt quite
faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back-stairs
and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-
room. These orders I obeyed, in such a nutter and hurry
of my young spirits as I had never known before ; and when
I got to the parlour-door, and the thought came into my head
that it might be my mother — I had only thought of Mr. or
Miss Murdstone until then — I iItpw back my hand from the
lock, and stopped to have a sob before I went in.

At first I saw nobody ; but feeling a pressure against the
door, I looked round it, and there, to my amazement, were
Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking at me with their hats, and
squeezing one another against the wall. I could not help
laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of see-
ing them, than at the appearance they made. We shook
hands in a very cordial way; and I laughed and laughed,
until I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my
eyes.

Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remem-
ber, during the visit) showed great concern when he saw
me do this, and nudged Ham to say something.

" Cheer up, Mas'r Davy bor' ! " said Ham, in his simpering
way. " Why, how you have growed! "

"Am I grown?" I said, drying my eyes. I was not
crying at anything particular that I know of; but somehow
it made me cry to see old friends.

"Growed, Mas'r Davy bor'? Ain't he growed!" said
Ham.

"Ain't he growed! " said Mr. Peggotty.

They made me laugh again by laughing at each other,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 10$

and then we all three laughed until I was in danger of crying.
lg^Do you know how mania is, Mr. Peggotty? " I said.

" And how my dear, dear, old Peggotty is?
" Oncommon," said Mr. Peggotty.
" Vnd little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?
-On -common," said Mr. Peggotty.
There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took
two prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large
canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them
np in Ham's arms.

-You see." said Mr. Peggotty, "knowing as you was
partial to a' little relish with your wittles w ^n jou was
along with us, we took the liberty. The old Maw her biled
'em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled 'em. Yes" said Mr
Peggotty, slowly, who I thought appeared to stick to the
subject on account of having no other subject ready, Mrs.
Gummidge, I do assure you, she biled 'em.

I expressed my thanks. Mr. Peggotty, after look ng j*
Ham, who stood smiling sheepishly over the shell-fish,
without making any attempt to help him, said :

«We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our
favour, in one of our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen . My
sister she wrote to me the name of this here place, and
wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen , 1
was to come over and enquire for Mas'r Davy, and gave
her dooty, humbly wishing him well, and reporting of the
fam'ly as they was oncommon toe-be-sure. Little Han ly,
you see, she'll write to my sister when I go back, as 1 see
you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make
it quite a merry-go-rounder." ,

I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what
Mr Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete
circle of intelligence/ I then thanked him heartily; and
said, with a consciousness of reddening that I supposed
little Em'ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells
and pebbles on the beach.

" She's getting to be a woman, that's wot she s getting to
be " said Mr. Peggotty. "Ask him."

He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over

^S4J!S^ta!- said M, Peggotty, with his own
shining like a light.

104 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Her learning ! " said Hani.

" Her writing ! " said Mr. Peggotty. " Why, it*s as black
as jet! And so large it is, yon might see it anywheres."

It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm
Mr. Peggotty became inspired when he thought of his little
favourite. He stands before me again, his bluff hairy face
irradiating with a joyful love and pride for which I can find
no description. His honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if
their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad
chest heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench
themselves, in his earnestness ; and he emphasises what he
says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy view, like a
sledge-hammer.

Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would
have said much more about her, if they had not been abashed
by the unexpected coming in of Steerforth, who, seeing me
in a corner speaking with two strangers, stopped in a song
he was singing, and said: "I didn't know you were here,
young Copperfield ! " (for it was not the usual visiting room),
and crossed by us on his way out.

I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such
a friend as Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him
how I came to have such a friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I
called to him as he was going away. But I said, modestly
— Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time
afterwards ! —

"Don't go, Steerforth, if you please These are two
Yarmouth boatmen — very kind, good people — who are
relations of my nurse, and have come from Gravesend to
see me."

''Ay, ay?" said Steerforth, returning "I am glad to
see them How are you both? "

There was an ease in his manner — a gay and light manner
it was, but not swaggering — which I still believe to have
borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him,
in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful
voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know,
of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a
few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to
which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not
many persons could withstand. I could not but see how
pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open
their hearts to him in a moment.

• DAVID COPPERFIELD. 105

• You must lee theni know at home, if you please, Mr.
Peggotty," I said, "when that letter is sent, that Mr.
Steerforth is very kind to me, and that I don't know what
I should ever do here without him."

•• Xonsense ! " said Steerforth, laughing. " You mustn't
tell them anything of the sort."

"And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or
Suffolk, Mr. Peggotty," I said, "while I am there, you
may depend upon it I shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he
will let me, to see your house. You never saw such a good
house, Steerforth. It's made out of a boat! "

- Made out of a boat, is it? " said Steerforth. " It's the
right sort of house for such a thorough-built boatman."

" So 'tis, Sir, so 'tis, Sir," said Ham, grinning. " You're
right, young gen'l'm'n. Mas'r Davy bor', gen'l'm'n's right.
A thorough-built boatman ! Hor, hor ! That's what he is,
too!"

Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though
his modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so
vociferously.

" Well, Sir," he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking
in the ends of his neckerchief at his breast : " I thankee,
Sir, I thankee ! I do my endeavours in my line of life,
Sir."

" The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty," said
Steerforth. He had got his name already.

"I'll pound it it's wot you do yourself, Sir," said Mr.
Peggotty, shaking his head, " and wot you do well — right
well! I thankee, Sir. I'm obleeged to you, Sir, for your
welcoming manner of me. I'm rough, Sir, but I'm ready
— least ways, I hope I'm ready, you understand. My house
ain't much for to see, Sir, but it's hearty at your service if
ever you should come along with Mas'r Davy to see it.
I'm a reg'lar Dodman, I am," said Mr. Peggotty ; by which
he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to
go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had
somehow or other come back again : " but I wish you both
well, and I wish you happy ! "

Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in
the heartiest manner. I was almost tempted that evening
to teli Steerforth about pretty little Em'ly, but I was too
timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of his
laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal,

106 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having
said that she was getting on to be a woman ; but I decided
that was nonsense.

We transported the shell-fish, or the '( relish" as Mr.
Peggotty had modestly called it, up into our room unob-
served, and made a great supper that evening. But Traddles
couldn't get happily out of it. He was too unfortunate even
to come through a supper like anybody else. He was taken
ill in the night — quite prostrate he was — in consequence of
crab ; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue
pills, to an extent which Deruple (whose father was a doctor)
said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received
a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing
to confess.

The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection
of the daily strife and struggle of our lives ; of the waning
summer and the changing season ; of the frosty mornings
when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of
the dark nights when we were rung into bed again ; of the
evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed,
and the morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great
shivering-machine ; of the alternation of boiled beef with
roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods
of bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked
slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cut-
tings, rainy Sundays, suet puddings, and a dirty atmosphere
of ink surrounding all.

I well remember though, how the distant idea of the
holidays, after seeming for an immense time to be a station-
ary speck, began to come towards us, and to grow and grow.
How, from counting months, we came to weeks, and then
to days ; and how 1 then began to be afraid that I should
not be sent for, and, when T learnt from Steerforth that I had
been sent for and was certainly to go home, had dim fore-
bodings that I might break my leg first. How the breaking-
up day changed its place fast, at last, from the week after
next to next week, this week, the day after to-morrow,
to-morrow, to-day, to-night — when I was inside the Yar-
mouth mail, and going home.

I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail,
and many an incoherent dream of all these things. But
when I awoke at intervals, the ground outside the win-
dow was not the playground of Salem House, and the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 107

sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving
it to Traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching
up the horses.

CHAPTER VIII.

MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON.

When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail
stopped, which was not the inn where my friend the waiter
lived, I was shown up to a nice little bedroom, with Dolphin
painted on the door. Very cold I was, I know, notwith-
standing the hot tea they had given me before a large fire
down-stairs ; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin's
bed, pull the Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to
sleep.

Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning
at nine o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the
shortness of my night's rest, and was ready for him before
the appointed time. He received me exactly as if not five
minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had
only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or
something of that sort.

As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier
seated, the lazy horse walked away with us all at his
accustomed pace.

'; Yrou look very well, Mr. Barkis," I said, thinking he
would like to know it.

Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked
at his cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon
it; but made no other acknowledgment of the compli-
ment.

"I gave your message, Mr. Barkis," I said; "I wrote to
Peggotty."

uAh!" said Mr. Barkis.

Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.

k- Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis? " I asked, after a little
hesitation.

" Why, no," said Mr. Barkis.

" Not the message? "
. ' The message was right enough, perhaps," said Mr
Barkis; "but it come to an end there."

108 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inqnisi
tively: "Came to an end, Mr. Barkis?"

"Nothing come of it," he explained, looking at me
sideways. "No answer."

" There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis? "
said I, opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me.

" When a man says he's willin'," said Mr. Barkis, turning
his glance slowly on me again, "it's as much as to say, that
man's a waitin' for a answer."

-Well, Mr. Barkis?"

" Well," said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his
norse's ears; "that man's been a waitin' for a answer ever
since."

"Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis? "

"N — no," growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. "1
ain't got no call to go and tell her so. I never said six
words to her myself. J ain't a goin' to tell her so."

"Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?" said 1,
doubtfully.

" You might tell her, if you would," said Mr. Barkis, with
another slow look at me, " that Barkis was a waitin' for a
answer. Says you — what name is it? "

"Her name?"

" Ah! " said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.

"Peggotty."

" Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name? " said Mr. Barkis.

"Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name
is Clara."

" Is it though? " said Mr. Barkis.

He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this
circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for
some time.

" Well ! " he resumed at length. " Says you, ' Peggotty !
Barkis is a waitin' for a answer.' Says she, perhaps,
'Answer to what?' Says you, 'To what I told you.'
' What is that? ' says she. ' Barkis is willin',' says you."

This extremely artful suggestion, Mr. Barkis accompanied
with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my
side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual
manner ; and made no other reference to the subject except,
half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his
pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, " Clara
Peggotty "—apparently as a private memorandum.

OF DAVID CWTERFIELD. 109

Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when
it was not home, and to find that every object I looked at,
reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a
dream I could never dream again! The days when my
mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another,
and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me
so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to
be there — not sure but that I would rather have remained
away, and forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But there
I was ; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-
trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and
shreds of the old rooks' -nests drifted away upon the wind.

The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left
me. I walked along the path towards the house, glancing
at the windows, and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murd-
stone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of one of them. No
face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and
knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knock-
ing, I went in with a quiet, timid step.

God knows how infantine the memory may have been,
that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother's
voice in the old parlour, when I set foot in the hall. She
was singing in a low tone. I think I must have lain in her
arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a
baby. The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old
that it filled my heart brim-full ; like a friend come back
from a long absence.

I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which
my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. And
I went softly into the room. She was sitting by the fire,
suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her
neck. Her 3yes were looking down upon its face, and she
sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other
companion .

I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing
me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy ! and coming
half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the
ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom
near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its
hand up to my lips.

I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that
feeling in my heart! I should have been more fit for
Heaven than I ever have been since.

X10 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"He is your brother," said my mother, fondling me.
" Davy, my pretty boy ! My poor child ! " Then she
kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck
This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and
bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about
us both for a quarter of an hour.

It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the
carrier being much before his usual time. It seemed, too5
that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in
the neighbourhood, and would not return before night. I
had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible
that we three could be together undisturbed, once more ;
and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come back.

We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in
attendance to wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let
her do it, and made her dine with us. I had my own old
plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail upon
it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I
had been away, and would not have had broken, she said,
for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with David
on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't
cut.

While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion
to tell Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished
what I had to tell her, began to laugh, and throw her apron
over her face.

"Peggotty!" said my mother. "What's the matter?"

Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight
over her face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat
as if her head were in a bag.

" What are you doing, you stupid creature? " said my
mother, laughing.

" Oh, drat the man ! " cried Peggotty. " He wants to
marry me."

" It would be a very good match for you; wouldn't it? "
said my mother.

"Oh! I don't know," said Peggotty. "Don't ask me.
I wouldn't have him if he was made of gold. Nor I
wouldn't have anybody."

" Then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing? "
said my mother.

"Tell him so," retorted Peggotty, looking out of her
apron. " He has never said a word to me about it. He

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. Ill

knows better. If he was to make so bold as say a word to
me, I should slap his face."

Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face,
I think ; but she only covered it again, for a few moments
at a time, when she was taken with a violent fit of laughter ;
and after two or three of those attacks, went on with her
dinner.

I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when
Peggotty looked at her, became more serious and thoughtful.
I had seen at first that she was changed. Her face was very
pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too delicate ; and
her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be
almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer
was superadded to this : it was in her manner, which became
anxious and fluttered. At last she said, putting out her
hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old
servant,

" Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married? "

" Me, ma'am? " returned Peggotty, staring. " Lord bless
you, no ! "

" Not just yet? " said my mother, tenderly

" Never ! " cried Peggotty.

My mother took her hand, and said :

" Don't leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not
be for long, perhaps. What should I ever do without you? "

" Me leave you, my precious ! " cried Peggotty. " Not for
all the world and his wife. Why, what's put that in your
silly little head? " — For Peggotty had been used of old to
talk to my mother sometimes, like a child.

But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and
Peggotty went running on in her own fashion.

"Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go
away from you? I should like to catch her at it ! No, no,
no," said Peggotty, shaking her head, and folding her arms ;
"not she, my dear. It isn't that there ain't some Cats that
would be well enough pleased if she did, but they shan't be
pleased. They shall be aggravated. I'll stay with you till
I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I'm too deaf,
and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of
teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with,,
then I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in."

" And, Peggotty," says I, " I shall be glad to see you,
^md I'll make you as welcome as a queen."

112 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Bless your dear heart ! " cried Peggotty. " I knovr vol;
will ! " And she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowh
edgment of my hospitality. After that, she covered her
head up with her apron again, and had another laugh about
Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little
cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner-
table; after that, came in with another cap on, and her
work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax candle,
all just the same as ever.

We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully I told
bhem what a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied
me very much. I told them what a fine fellow Steerforth
was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said she
would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little
baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly.
When it was asleep again, I crept close to my mother's side,
according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and
sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red
cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair
drooping over me— like an angel's wing as I used to think,
I recollect — and was very happy indeed.

While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures
in the red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been
away; that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and
would vanish when the fire got low ; and that there was
nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother,
Peggotty, and I.

Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could
see, and then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove,
and her needle in her right, ready to take another stitch
whenever there was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose
stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always
darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in
want of darning can have come from. From my earliest
infancy she seems to have been always employed in that
class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other.

" I wonder," said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized
with a fit of wondering on some most unexpected topic,
"what's become of Davy's great-aunt? "

"lor, Peggotty!" observed my mother, rousing herself
from a reverie, " what nonsense you talk ! "

"Well, but I really do wonder, ma'am," said Peggotty.

"What can have put such a person in your head9

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 113

inquired my mother. " Is there nobody else in the world
to come there?"

" I don't know how it is," said Peggotty, "unless it's on
account of being stupid, but my head never can pick and
choose its people. They come and they go, and they don't
come and they don't go, just as they like. I wonder what's
become of her? "

" How absurd you are, Peggotty," returned my mother
One would suppose you wanted a second visit from hei '"

" Lord forbid ! " cried Peggotty.

" Well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things,
there's a good soul," said my mother. "Miss Betsey is
shut up in her cottage by the sea, no doubt, and will remain
there. At all events, she is not likely ever to trouble us
again."

" No ! " mused Peggotty. " Xo, that ain't likely at all.
— I wonder, if she was to die, whether she'd leave Davy
anything? "

"G-ood gracious me, Peggotty,'7 returned my mother,
" what a nonsensical woman you are ! when you know that
she took offence at the poor dear boy's ever being born at
all!"

" I suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now,"
hinted Peggotty.

" Why should she be inclined to forgive him now? " said
my mother, rather sharply.

"Xow that he's got a brother, I mean," said Peggotty.

My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how
Peggotty dared to say such a thing.

" As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done
any harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing! " said
she. " You had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the
carrier. Why don't you? "

" I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to," said
Peggotty.

" What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty ! " returned
my mother. " You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it
is possible for a ridiculous creature to be. You want to
keep the keys yourself, and give out all the things, I sup-
pose? I shouldn't be surprised if you did. When you
know that she only does it out of kindness and the best
intentions ! You know she does, Peggotty — you know it
well."

114 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Peggotty muttered something to the effect of " Bother tht
best intentions ! " and something else to the effect that there
was a little too much of the best intentions going on.

" I know what you mean, you cross thing, " said my
mother. " I understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You
know I do, and I wonder you don't colour up like fire.
But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now,
Peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from it. Haven't you
heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am
too thoughtless and too — a — a "

"Pretty," suggested Peggotty.

" Well," returned my mother, half laughing, "and if she
is so silly as to say so, can I be blamed for it? "

"No one says you can," said Peggotty.

" No, I should hope not, indeed ! " returned my mother.
" Haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that on
this account she wishes to spare me a great deal of trouble,
which she thinks I am not suited for, and which I really
don't know myself that I am suited for; and isn't she up
early and late, and going to and fro continually — and doesn't
she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places,
coal-holes and pantries and I don't know where, that can't
be very agreeable — and do you mean to insinuate that there
is not a sort of devotion in that? "

" I don't insinuate at all," said Peggotty.

" YTou do, Peggotty," returned my mother. " You never
do anything else, except your work. You are always
insinuating. You revel in it. And when you talk of Mr.
Murdstone' s good intentions "

" I never talked of 'em," said Peggotty.

"No, Peggotty," returned my mother, "but you insinu-
ated. That's what I told you just now. That's the worst
of you. You will insinuate. I said, at the moment, that
I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk of
Mr. Murdstone 's good intentions, and pretend to slight
them (for I don't believe you really do, in j^our heart,
Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good
they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he
seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, Peg-
gotty— you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I
am not alluding to anybody present— it is solely because he
is satisfied that it is for a certain person's benefit. He
naturally loves 3 certain person, on my account; and acts

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 115

solely for a certain person's good. He is better able to
judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a
weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave,
serious man. And he takes," said my mother, with the
tears which were engendered in her affectionate nature,
stealing down her face, " he takes great pains with me ; and
I ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive
to him even in my thoughts ; and when I am not, Peggotty,
I worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own
heart, and don't know what to do."

Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking,
looking silently at the fire.

"There, Peggotty," said my mother, changing her tone,
"don't let us fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear
it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the
world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vex-
atious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean
that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever
since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home
here, and you came out to the gate to meet me."

Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratified the treaty
of friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I
had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation
at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature
originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother
might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary
in which she had indulged. The design was efficacious ; for
I remember that my mother seemed more at ease during
the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed her
less.

When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up,
and the candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of
the Crocodile Book, in remembrance of old times — she took
it out of her pocket : I don't know whether she had kept it
there ever since — and then we talked about Salem House,
which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my
great subject. We were very happy; and that evening, as
the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that
volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory.

It was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of
wheels. We all got up then ; and my mother said hurriedly
cnat, sl? it was so late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved
of early hours for young people, perhaps I had better go to

116 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

bed. I kissed her, and went up-stairs with my candle
directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish
fancy, as I ascended to the -bedroom where I had been
imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the
house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a
feather.

I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in
the morning, as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone
since the day when I committed my memorable offence.
However, as it must be done, I went down, after two or
three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe
to my own room, and presented myself in the parlour.

He was standing before the fire with his back to it,
while Miss ^Vlurdstone made- the tea. He looked at me
steadily as I entered, but made no sign of recognition
whatever.

I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said :
" I beg your pardon, Sir. I am very sorry for what I did,
and I hope you will forgive me."

" I am glad to hear you are sorry, David," he replied.

The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could
not restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot
upon it ; but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that
sinister expression in his face.

" How do you do, ma'am? " I said to Miss Murdstone.

" Ah, dear me ! " sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the
tea-caddy scoop instead of her fingers. " How long are the
holidays? "

''A month, ma'am."

" Counting from when? "

"From to-day, ma'am."

" Oh ! " said Miss Murdstone . " Then here' s one day off. fi

She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every
morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She
did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into
two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time
advanced, even jocular.

It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to
throw her, though she was not subject to such weaknesses
in general, into a state of violent consternation. I came
into the room where she and my mother were sitting ; and
the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my
mother's lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Sud-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 117

denly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but
dropped fr

k' My dear Jane ! " cried my mother.

"Good Heavens, Clara, do you see?" exclaimed Miss
Murdstone.

" See what, my dear Jane? " said my mother ; " where? "

''He's got it!" cried Miss Murdstone. "The boy has
got the baby ! "

She was limp with horror ; but stiffened herself to make
a dart at me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned
faint ; and was so very ill, that they were obliged to give
her cherry-brandy. I was solemnly interdicted by her, on
her recovery, from touching my brother any more on any
pretence whatever ; and my poor mother, who, I could see,
wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying :
"No doubt you are right, my dear Jane."

On another occasion, when we three were together, this
same dear baby — it was truly dear to me, for our mother's
sake — was the innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone' s going
into a passion. My mother, who had been looking at its
eyes as it lay upon her lap, said :

"Davy! come here! " and looked at mine

I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.

"I declare," said my mother, gently, '-they are exactly
alike. I suppose they are mine. I think they are the
colour of mine. But they are wonderfully alike."

" What are you talking about, Clara? " said Miss Murd-
stone.

" My dear Jane, "faltered my mother, a little abashed by
the harsh tone of this inquiry, " I find that the baby' s eyes
and Davy's are exactly alike."

"Clara! " said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, "you are
a positive fool sometimes."

"My dear Jane," remonstrated my mother.

"A positive fool," said Miss Murdstone. "Who else
could compare my brother's baby with your boy? They
are not at all alike. They are exactly unlike. They are
utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they will ever
remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons
made. " With that she stalked out, and made the door bang
after her.

In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In
short, I was not a favourite there with anybody, not even

118 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

with myself ; for those who did like me could not show it,
and those who did not showed it so plainly that I had a
sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained,
boorish, and dull.

I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made
me. If I came into the room where they were, and they
were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an
anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment
of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best
humour, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her
worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know
that my mother was the victim always ; that she was afraid
to speak to me, or be kind to me, lest she should give them
some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture
afterwards ; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her
own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched
their looks if I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep
myself as much out of their way as I could ; and many a
wintry hour did I hear the church-clock strike, when I was
sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-
coat, poring over a book.

In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty
in the kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of
being myself. But neither of these resources was approved
of in the parlour. The tormenting humour which was
dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be
necessary to my poor mother's training, and, as one of her
trials, could not be suffered to absent myself.

"David," said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when
I was going to leave the room as usual ; " I am sorry to
observe that you are of a sullen disposition."

"As sulky as a bear! " said Miss Murdstone.

I stood still, and hung my head.

"Now, David," said Mr. Murdstone, "a sullen obdurate
disposition is, of all tempers, the worst. "

"And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever 1
have seen," remarked his sister, "the most confirmed and
stubborn. I think, my dear Clara, even you must observe
it?"

" I beg your pardon, my dear Jane," said my mother,,
"but are you quite sure — lam certain you'll excuse me, my
dear Jane — that you understand Davy? "

"I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara-"

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 119

returned Miss Murdstone, " if I could not understand trie
boy, or any boy. I don't profess to be profound; but I do
lay claim to common sense."

"No doubt, my dear Jane," returned my mother, "your
understanding is very vigorous — "

'•'Oh dear, no! Pray don't say that, Clara," interposed
Miss Murdstone, angrily.

"But I am sure it is," resumed my mother; "and every
body knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many
ways — at least I ought to— that no one can be more
convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with
great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you."

" We'll say I don't understand the boy, Clara," returned
Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists,
"We'll agree, if you please, that I don't understand him
at all. He is much too deep for me. But perhaps my
brother's penetration may enable him to have some insight
into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking
on the subject when we — not very decently — interrupted
him."

"I think, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave
voice, "that there may be better and more dispassionate
judges of such a question than you."

"Edward," replied my mother, timidly, "you are a far
better judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both
you and Jane are. I only said "

" You only said something weak and inconsiderate," he
replied. " Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep
a watch upon yourself."

My mother's lips moved, as if she answered " Yes, my
dear Edward," but she said nothing aloud.

" I was sorry, David, I remarked," said Mr. Murdstone,
turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, " to observe
that you are of a sullen disposition. This is not a character
that I can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without
an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, Sir, to
change it. We must endeavour to change it for you."

"I beg your pardon, Sir," I faltered. "I have never
meant to be sullen since I came back."

"Don't take refuge in a lie, Sir ! " he returned so fiercely,
that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling
hand as if to interpose between us. " You have withdrawn
yourself in your sullenness to 3^0111* own room-. You have

120 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

kept your own room when you ought to have been here.
You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here
and not there. Further, that I require you to bring
obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it
done."

Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.

" I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing
towards inyself," he continued, "and towards Jane Murd-
stone, and towards your mother. I will not have this room
shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child.
Sit down."

He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.

" One thing more," he said. " I observe that you have an
attachment to low and common company. You are not to
associate with servants. The kitchen will not improve you,
in the many respects in which you need improvement. Of
the woman who abets you, I say nothing — since you,
Clara," addressing my mother in a lower voice, "from old
associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness
respecting her which is not yet overcome."

" A most unaccountable delusion it is ! " cried Miss
Murdstone.

"I only say," he resumed, addressing me, "that I disap-
prove of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty,
and that it is to be abandoned. Xow, David, you understand
me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail
to obey me to the letter."

I knew well — better perhaps than he thought, as far as
my poor mother was concerned — and I obeyed him to the
letter. I retreated to my own room no more ; I took refuge
with Peggotty no more ; but sat wearily in the parlour day
after day looking forward to night, and bedtime.

What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same
attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg
lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as she did on the
least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an
eye lest she should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny
that would find new cause for complaint in mine ! What
intolerable dumess to sit listening to the ticking of the
clock; and watching Miss Murdstone' s little shiny, steel
beads as she strung them ; and wondering whether she would
ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man ;
and counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 121

piece; ana wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceil-
ing, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the
wall!

What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad
winter weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss
Murdstone in it, everywhere : a monstrous load that I was
obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of
breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted
them!

What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always
feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and those
mine ; an appetite too many, and that mine ; a plate and
chair too many, and those mine ; a somebody too many, and
that I!

What evenings, when the candles came, and I was ex-
pected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an enter-
taining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted
treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and
measures set themselves to tunes, as Rule Britannia, or
Away with Melancholy ; when they wouldn't stand still to
be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle
through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the
other !

What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my
care ; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what
answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made ;
what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked,
and yet was in everybody' s way ; what a heavy relief it was
to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night,
and order me to bed !

Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came
when Miss Murdstone said : " Here's the last day off ! " and
gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation.

I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state ;
but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steer-
forth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr.
Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in
her warning voice said : " Clara ! " when my mother bent
over me, to bid me farewell.

I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry
then ; but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was
there, and the parting was there, every day. And it is not
so much the embrace she gave r£e, that lives in my mind,

122 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the
embrace.

I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling tome.
I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding
her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still
weather ; and not a hair of her head, or a fold of her dress,
was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her
child.

So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at
school — a silent presence near my bed — looking at me with
the same intent face — holding up her baby in her arms.

CHAPTER IX.

I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY

I pass over all that happened at school, until the anni-
versary of my birthday came round in March Except that
Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I remember
nothing He was going away at the end of the half-year,,
if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than
before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before ;
but beyond this I remember nothing. The great remem-
brance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to
have swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone.

It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap
of full two months between my return to Salem House and
the arrival of that birthday. I can only understand that
the fact was so, because I know it must have been so;
otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no interval;
and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels.

How well I recollect the kind of day it was ! I smell the
fog that hung about the place ; I see the hoar frost, ghostly,
through it ; I feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek ;
I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a
sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy
morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking
in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their
feet upon the floor

It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in
from the playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said :

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 123

"David Copperfield is to go into the parlour."

I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at
the order. Some of the boys about me put in their claim
not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things,
as I got out of my seat with great alacrity.

"Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. "There's time
enough, my boy, don't hurry."

I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which
he spoke, if I had given it a thought ; but I gave it none
until afterwards. I hurried away to the parlour ; and there
I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his breakfast with the cane
and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an
opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.

"David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a
sofa, and sitting down beside me. " I want to speak to you
very particularly. I have something to tell you, my child. "

Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head
without looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very
large piece of buttered toast.

" You are too young to know how the world changes every
day," said Mrs. Creakle, " and how the people in it pass
away. But we all have to learn it, David ; some of us when
we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all
times of our lives."

I looked at her earnestly.

" When you came away from home at the end of the
vacation," said Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, " were they all
well? " After another pause, " Was your mama well? " _

I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still
looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer.

" Because," said she, " I grieve to tell you that I hear this
morning your mama is very ill."

A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure
seemed to move in it for an instant Then I felt the burning
tears run down my face, and it was steady again.

" She is very dangerously ill," she added.

I knew all now.

"She is dead."

There was no need to tell me so I had already broken
out into a desolate cry, and f&lt an orphan in the wide world.

She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day,
and left me alone sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself
to sleep, and awoke and cried again. When I could cry no

124 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

more, I began to think; and then the oppression on my
breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there
was no ease for.

And yet my thoughts were idle ; not intent on the calamity
that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I
thought of our house shut up and hushed. I thought of
the little baby, who, Mrs Creakle said, had been pining
away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too.
I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our
house, and of my mother tying there beneath the tree I knew
so well I stood upon a chair when I was left alone, and
looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and how
sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were
gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they
seemed to be, what, in connexion with my loss, it would
affect me most to think of when I drew near home — for I
was going home to the funeral. I am sensible of having
felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the
boys, and that I was important in my affliction.

If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was.
But I remembered that this importance was a kind of sat-
isfaction to me, when I walked in the playground that
afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw them
glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their
classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy,
and walked slower. When school was over, and they came
out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to
be proud to any of them, and to take exactly the same notice
of them all, as before.

I was to go home next night ; not by the mail, but by the
heavy night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was
principally used by country-people travelling short inter-
mediate distances upon the road. We had no story-telling
that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow.
I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I
had one of my own : but it was all he had to lend, poor
fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons ; and
that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my sorrows and
a contribution to my peace of mind.

I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little
thought then that I left it, never to return. We travelled
very slowly all night, and did not get into Yarmouth before
nine or ten o'clock in the morning. I looked out for Mr.

OF DAVID COPPERF1ELD 125

Barkis, but he was not there ; and instead of him a fat,
short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with
rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches,
black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up
to the coach-window, and said :

" Master Copperfield? "

"Yes, Sir."

"Will you come with me, young Sir, if you please," he
said, opening the door, " and I shall have the pleasure of
taking you home."

I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we
walked away to a shop in a narrow street, on which was
written Omer, Draper, Tailor, Haberdasher, Funeral
Furnisher, &c. It was a close and stifling little shop;
full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including
one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into
a little back-parlour behind the shop, where we found three
young women at work on a quantity of black materials,
which were heaped upon the table, and little bits of cuttings
of which were littered all over the floor. There was a good
fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape
— I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now.

The three young women, who appeared to be very indus-
trious and comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and
then went on with their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At
the same time there came from a workshop across a little
yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering that
kept a kind of tune : Rat— tat-tat, rat— tat-tat, rat— tat-
tat, without any variation.

"Well," said my conductor to one of the three young
women. " How do you get on, Minnie? "

" We shall be ready by the trying-on time," she replied
gaily, without looking up. " Don't you be afraid, father."

Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down
and panted. He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some
time before he could say :

"That's right."

"Father!" said Minnie, playfully "What a porpoise
you do grow ! "

"Well, I don't know how it is, my dear," he replied,
considering about it- "I am rather so"

" You are such a comfortable man, you see," said Minnie
" You take things so easy. *

126 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear," said Mr-
Oiner.

" No, indeed," returned his daughter. " We are all pretty
gay here, thank Heaven! Ain't we, father?"

" I hope so, my dear," said Mr. Omer. " As I have got
my breath now, I think I'll measure this young scholar.
Would you walk into the shop, Master Copperfield? "

I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request ; and
after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra
super, and too good mourning for anything short of parents,
he took my various dimensions, and put them down in z
book . While he was recording them he called my attention
to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said
had "just come up," and to certain other fashions which he-
said had "just gone out."

" And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint
of money," said Mr. Omer. " But fashions are like human
beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why, or how;
and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or how. Every-
thing is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that
point of view.'*

I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would
possibly have been beyond me under any circumstances ; and
Mr. Omer took me back into the parlour, breathing with
some difficulty on the way.

He then called down a little break-neck range of steps
behind a door : " Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter ! "
which, after some time, during which I sat looking about
me and thinking, and listening to the stitching in the room
and the tune that was being hammered across the yard,
appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me.

" I have been acquainted with you," said Mr. Omer, after
watching me for some minutes, during which I had not
made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things
destroyed my appetite, " I have been acquainted with you a
long time, my young friend."

" Have you, Sir? "

" All your life," said Mr. Omer. " I may say before it.
I knew your father before you. He was five foot nine and
a half, and he lays in live and twen-ty foot of ground."

" Rat— tat-tat, rat— tat-tat, rat — tat-tat," across the
yard.

" He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 127

in a fraction," said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. " It was either
his request or her direction, I forget which."

" Do you know how my little brother is, Sir? " I inquired.

Mr. Omer shook his head.

"Kat — tat-tat, rat— tat-tat, rat — tat-tat,"

" He is in his mother's arms," said he.

" Oh, poor little fellow ! Is he dead? "

" Don't mind it more than you can help," said Mr. Omer.
"Yes. The baby's dead."

My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left
the scarcely tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head
on another table in a corner of the little room, which Minnie
hastily cleared, lest I should spot the mourning that was
lying there with my tears. She was a pretty good-natured
girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind
touch ; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished
her work and being in good time, and was so different from
me!

Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young
fellow came across the yard into the room. He had a
hammer in his hand, and his mouth was full of little nails,
which he was obliged to take out before he could speak.

" Well, Joram ! " said Mr. Omer. " How do you get on? "

" All right," said Joram. " Done, Sir."

Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled
at one another.

" What ! you were at it by candle-light last night, when
I was at the club, then? Were you?" said Mr. Omer,
shutting up one eye.

" Yes," said Joram. " As you said we could make a little
trip of it, and go over together, if it was done, Minnie and
dip — and you."

" Oh ! I thought you were going to leave me out alto-
gether," said Mr. Omer, laughing till he coughed.

" — As you was so good as to say that," resumed the
young man, "why I turned to with a will, you see. Will
you give me your opinion of it? "

"I will," said Mr. Omer, rising. "My dear;" and he
stopped and turned to me ; " would you like to see your "

"No, father," Minnie interposed.

" I thought it might be agreeable, my dear," said Mr.
Omer. " But perhaps you're right."

I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's

128 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

coffin that they went to look at. I had never heard one
making ; I had never seen one that I know of : but it came
into my mind what the noise was, while it was going on ;
and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what
he had been doing.

The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names
I had not heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their
dresses, and went into the shop to put that to rights, and
wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind to fold up what
they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she did
upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while.
Joram, who I had no doubt was her lover, came in and stole
a kiss from her while she was busy (he didn't appear to
mind me, at all), and said her father was gone for the
chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready.
Then he went out again ; and then she put her thimble and
scissors in her pocket, and stuck a needle threaded with
black thread neatly in the bosom of her gown, and put on
her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behind the door,
in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face.

All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with
my head leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on
very different things. The chaise soon came round to the
front of the shop, and the baskets being put in first, I was
put in next, and those three followed. I remember it as a
kind of half chaise-cart, half pianoforte -van, painted of a
sombre colour, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail-
There was plenty of room for us all.

I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling
in my life (I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with
them, remembering how they had been employed, and seeing
them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them ; I was
more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures
with whom I had no community of nature. They were very
cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two
young people sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to
them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face
and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him.
They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and
moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and
hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost
wondering that no judgment came upon them for their
hard»**« <tf heart.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 129

So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and
drank and enjoyed themselves, I could touch nothing that
they touched, but kept my fast unbroken. So, when we
reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind, as quickly
as possible, that I might not be in their company before those
solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes
once bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think
what would move me to tears when I came back — seeing
the window of my mother's room, and next it that which,
in the better time, was mine!

I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and
she took me into the house. Her grief burst out when she
first saw me; but she controlled it soon, and spoke in
whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could be dis-
turbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time.
She sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor
dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she would never
desert her.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the
parlour, where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping
silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone,
who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with
letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked
me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my
mourning.

I said: "Yes."

"And your shirts," said Miss Murdstone; "have you
brought 'em home? "

" Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes."

This was all the consolation that her firmness administered
to me. I do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in
exhibiting what she called her self-command, and her
firmness, and her strength of mind, and her common sense,
and the whole diabolical catalogue of her un amiable quali-
ties, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of
her turn for business ; and she showed it now in reducing
everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing.
All the rest of that day, and from morning to night after-
wards, she sat at that desk ; scratching composedly with a
hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to
everybody ; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening
a tone of her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress
astray.

i30 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that
I saw He would open it and look at it as if he were
reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning
the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the
room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and
counting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom
spoke to her, and never to me. He seemed to be the only
restless thing, except the clocks, in the whole motionless
house

In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of
Peggotty, except that, in passing up or down stairs, I
always found her close to the room where my mother and
her baby lay, and except that she came to me every night,
and sat by my bed's head while I went to sleep A day or
two before the burial — I think it was a day or two before,
but I am conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy
time, with nothing to mark its progress — she took me into
the room. I only recollect that underneath some white
covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and fresh-
ness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the
solemn stillness that was in the house ; and that when she
would have turned the cover gently back, I cried, "Oh no!
oh no ! " and held her hand.

If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it
better. The very air of the best parlour, when I went in
at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of
the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and
plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of Miss
Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is
in the room, and comes to speak to me.

" And how is Master David? " he says, kindly.

I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which
he holds in his.

"Dear me!" says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with
something shining in his eye. "Our little friends grow up
around us. They grow out of our knowledge, ma'am? "

ThL is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply.

"There is a great improvement here, ma'am? V says Mr.
Chillip.

Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal
bend; Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping
me with him, and opens his mouth no more.

I remark this, because I temark everything that happens.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 131

not because I care about myself, or have done since 1 came
home. And now the bell begins to sound, and Mr. Omer
and another come to make us ready. As Peggotty was
wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the
same grave were made ready in the same room.

There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper,
Mr. Chillip, and I. When we go out to the door, the bearers
and their load are in the garden ; and they move before us
down the path, and past the elms, and through the gate, and
into the 3hurchyard, where I have so often heard the birds
sing on a summer morning.

We stand around the grave. The day seems different to
me from every other day, and the light not of the same
colour — of a sadder colour. Now there is a solemn hush,
which we have brought from home with what is resting in
the mould; and while we stand bare-headed, I hear the
voice of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and
yet distinct and plain, saying, " I am the Resurrection and
the Life, saith the Lord ! " Then I hear sobs ; and, standing
apart among the lookers-on, I see that good and faithful
servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the best,
and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord
will one day say, "Well done."

There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd ;
faces that I knew in church, when mine was always wonder-
ing there ; faces that first saw my mother, when she came
to the village in her youthful bloom. \ do not mind them
— I mind nothing but my grief — and yet I see and know
them all ; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie
looking on, and her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is
near me.

It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come
away. Before us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged,
so linked in my mind with the young idea of what is gone,
that all my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it calls
forth. But they take me on ; and Mr. Chillip talks to me ;
and when we get home, puts some water to my rips ; and
when I ask his leave to go up to my room, dismisses me
with the gentleness of a woman.

All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of later date
have floated from me to the shore where all forgotten things
will reappear, but this stands like a high rock in the ocean.

I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room.

132 PERSONAL, HISTORY Alsu EXPERIENCE

The Sabbath stillness of the time (the day was so like
Sunday ! I have forgotten that) was suited to us both.
She sat down by rny side upon my little bed ; and holding
my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and some-
times smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted
my little brother, told me, in her way, all that she had to
tell concerning what had happened.

" She was never well," said Peggotty, " for a long time.
She was uncertain in her mind, and not happy. When
her baby was born, I thought at first she would get better,
but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every day.
She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then
she cried ; but afterwards she used to sing to it — so soft,
that I once thought when I heard her, it was like a voice
up in the air, that was rising away.

" I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-
like, of late ; and that a hard word was like a blow to her.
But she was always the same to me. She never changed to
her foolish Peggotty, didn't my sweet girl."

Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand
a little while.

" The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was
the night when you came home, my dear. The day you
went away, she said to me, ' I never shall see my pretty
darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the truth,
I know/

" She tried to hold up after that ; and many a time, when
they told her she was thoughtless" and light-hearted, made
believe to be so ; but it was all a bygone then. She never
told her husband what she had told me— she was afraid of
saying it to anybody else — till one night, a little more than
a week before it happened, when she said to him, * My dear,
I think I am dying.'

" 'It's off my mind now, j. eggotty,' she told me, when 1
laid her in her bed that night. " ; He will believe it more
and more, poor fellow, every day for a few days to come ;
and then it will be past. I am very tired. If this is sleep,
sit by me while I sleep : don't leave me. God bless both
my children ! God protect and keep my fatherless boy ! '

u I never left her afterwards," said Peggotty. " She
often talked to them two down-stairs — for she loved them ;
she couldn't bear not to love anyone who was about her—

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 133

but when they went away from her bedside, she always
turned to rne, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and
never fell asleep in any other way.

" On the last night, in the evening, she kissed rne, and
said : ' If my baby should die too, Peggotty, please let
them lay him in my arms, and bury us together.' (It was
done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her.)
1 Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,' she
said, * and tell him that his mother, when she lay here
blessed him not once, but a thousand times. ' "

Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating
on my hand.

"It was pretty far in the night," said Peggotty, "when
she asked me for some drink ; and when she had taken it,
gave me such a patient smile, the dear! — so beautiful! —

" Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she
said to me, how kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had
always been to her, and how he had borne with her, and
told her, when she doubted herself, that a loving heart was
better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a happy
man in hers. ' Peggotty, my dear,' she said then, ' put me
nearer to you,' for she was very weak. ' Lay your good
arm underneath my neck,' she said, ' and turn me to you,
for your face is going far off, and I want it to be near. ' I
put it as she asked ; and oh Davy ! the time had come when
my first parting words to you were true — when she was glad
to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty' s arm
— and she died like a child that had gone to sleep ! "

Thus ended Peggotty ?s narration. From the moment of
my knowing of the death of my mother, the idea of her as
she had been of late had vanished from me. I remembered
her, from that instant, only as the young mother of my
earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright
curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me at
twilight in the parlour. What Peggotty had told me now,
was so far from bringing me back to the later period, that
it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may be curious,
but it is true In her death she winged her way back to
her calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest.

The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my
inf ai? cy ; the little creature in her arms was myself, as I had
once been, hushed for ever on her bosom.

134= persona: history and experience
CHAPTER X

I BECOME NEGLECTED. AND AM PROVIDED FOR.

The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed
when the day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely
admitted into the house, was to give Peggotty a month's
warning. Much as Peggotty would have disliked such a
service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake,
in preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must
part, and told me why ; and we condoled with one another,
in all sincerity.

As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step
taken. Happy they would have been, I dare say, if they
could have dismissed me at a month's warning too. I
mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when I was
going back to school; and she answered drily, she believed
I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I
was very anxious to know, what was going to be done with
me, and so was Peggotty ; but neither she nor I could pick
up any information on the subject.

There was one change in my condition, which, while it
relieved me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might
have made me, if I had been capable of considering it
closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. It was
this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite
abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my
dull post in the parlour, that on several occasions, when I
took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go
away. I was so far from being warned off from Peggotty' s
society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone' s, I was
never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily
dread of his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss
Murdstone' s devoting herself to it; but I soon began to
think that such fears were groundless, and that all I had to
anticipate was neglect.

I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain
then. I was still giddy with the shock of my mother's
death, and in a kind of stunned state as to all tributary
things. I can recollect, indeed, to have speculated, at odd

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 135

times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more,
or cared for any more ; and growing up to be a shabby moody
man, lounging an idle life away, about the village ; as well
as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by
going awav somewhere, like the hero in a story, to seek my
fortune : but these were transient visions, day dreams I sat
looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly pamted or
written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted
away, left the wall blank again.

'•Peggotty" I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening,
when I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, Mr.
Murdstone likes me less than he used to. He never liked
me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not even see me
now, if he can help it." .

^Perhaps it's his sorrow," said Peggotty, stroking my

ia- 1 am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it ■
was his sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it s
not that; oh no, it's not that,"

" How do you know it's not that? " saia Peggotty, after

1 "Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing.
He is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss
Murdstone; but if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be
something besides."

" What would he be? " said Peggotty.

" \ngry " I answered, with an involuntary imitation oi
his dark frown. " If he was only sorry, he wouldn t look
at me as he does. Jam only sorry, and it makes me feel

"peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed
my hands, as silent as she.

" Davy," she said at length.

" Yes Pe°"°"otty? "

« 1 have tried, my dear, all ways 1 could think of— all
the ways there are, and all the ways there am t,m short-
to get a suitable service here, in Blunderstone ; but there s
no such a thing, my love." .

« And what do mean to do, Peggotty? " says I, wistfully.
'Do you mean to go and seek your fortune.'

" I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth, replied
Peggotty, " and live there." .' . , .

-You might have gone farther off," I said, brightening

136 PERSOTSAi HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

a.little, " and been as bad as lost. I shall see you some-
times, my dear old Peggotty, there. You won't be quite
at the other end of the world, will you? "

" Contrary ways, please God ! " said Peggotty, with great
animation. " As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come
over every week of my life to see you. One day, every week
of my life ! "

I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise ;
but even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say :

" I'm a going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for
another fortnight's visit — just till I have had time to look
about me, and get to be something like myself again. Now,
I have been thinking, that perhaps, as they don't want you
here at present, you might be let to go along with me."

If anything, short of being in a different relation to every
one about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a
sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this
project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded
by those honest faces, shining welcome on me ; of renewing
the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the
bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and
the shadowy ships breaking through the mist ; of roaming
up and down with little Em'ly, telling her my troubles, and
finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on
the beach , made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next
moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone' s giving
her consent; but even that was set at rest soon, for she
came out to take an evening grope in the store-closet while
we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with a boldness
that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot.

"The boy will be idle there," said Miss Murdstone, look-
ing into a pickle-jar, "and idleness is the root of all evil.
But, to be sure, he would be idle here — or anywhere, in my
opinion."

Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see ; but
she swallowed it for my sake, and remained silent.

"Humph!" said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye
on the pickles ; " it is of more importance than anything else
— it is of paramount importance — that my brother should
not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. I suppose I had
better say yes."

I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy.,
lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent Nor could

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 137

I help thinking this a prudent course, when she looked at
me out of the pickle-jar, with as great an access of sourness
as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However,
the permission was given, and was never retracted ; for when
the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart.

Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty' s boxes. I
had never known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on
this occasion he came into the house. And he gave me a
look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which
I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said
to find its way into Mr. Barkis' s visage.

Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had
been her home so many years, and where the two strong
attachments of her life — for my mother and myself — had
been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too,
very early ; and she got into the cart, and sat in it with her
handkerchief at her eyes.

So long as she remained hi this condition, Mr. Barkis gave
no sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and
attitude, like a great stuffed figure. But when she began
to look about her, and to speak to me, he nodded his head
and grinned several times. I have not the least notion at
whom, or what he meant by it.

" It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis! " I said, as an act of
politeness.

" It ain't bad," said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified
his speech, and rarely committed himself.

"Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis," I
remarked, for his satisfaction.

"Is she, though!" said Mr. Barkis.

After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis
eyed her, and said :

" Are you pretty comfortable?"

Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.

" But really and truly, you know. Are you? " growled
Mr. Barkis, sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging
her with his elbow. "Are you? Really and truly, pretty
comfortable? Are you? Eh?" At each of these inquiries
Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another
nudge ; so that at last we were all crowded together in the
left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I
could hardly bear it.

Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis

138 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

gave nie a little more room at once, and got away by degrees
But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he
had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself
in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the
inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly
chuckled over it for some time. By-and-by he turned to
Peggotty again, and repeating, " Are you pretty comf oitable
though?" bore down upon us as before, until the breath
was nearly wedged out of my body. By-and-by he made
another descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the
same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him
coming, and standing on the footboard, pretended to took
at the prospect; after which I did very well.

He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly
on our account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and'
beer. Even when Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he
was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked
her But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he
had more to do and less time for gallantry ; and when we
got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and
jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else

Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place.
They received me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner,
and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who, with his hat on the
very back of his head, and a shamefaced leer upon his
countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a
vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of
Peggotty' s trunks, and we were going away, when Mr.
Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to
come under an archway.

"I say," growled Mr. Barkis, "it was all right."

I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt
to be very profound : " Oh ! "

" It didn't come to a end there," said Mr. Barkis, nodding
confidentially. "It was all right."

Again I answered : " Oh ! "

"You know who was willin\" said my friend. "It was
Barkis, and Barkis only "

I nodded assent.

"It's all right," said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; "I'm
a friend of your'n. You made it all right first. It's a!!
right."

In his attempts to be particularly lurid. Mr Barkis was

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 139

so extremely mysterious that I might have stood looking m
Ms face fo an hour, and most assuredly should have got as
^,eh mf ormatron out of it as out of the faee o a clock ha
had stopped, but for Peggotty s calling me away As we
were going along, she asked me what he had said, and 1
told her he had said it was all right. _

- Like his impudence," said Peggotty, » but I don t m md
that ! Davy dear, what should yon think if I was to think

0^-^g"T'suppose you would like me as much then,
Peggotty, as yo^do now?" I returned, after a little con-

"Stly to the astonishment of the passengers in the
street, as well as of her relations going on before, the good
soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with
many protestations of her unalterable love

'•Tell me what should you say, darling. she asked
again, when this was over, and we were walking on

« If you were thinking of being marned-to Mi. Barkis.
Peggotty?"

" Yes," said Peggotty. •,«.-' Fm- then

« I should think it would be a very good thing. For^ then

vou know Peggotty, yon would always have the horse and

Lrt to Ju'ig you ove'r to see me, and could come for nothing.

and be sure of coming." l ,

« The sense of the dear ! " cried Peggotty. V, hat I nave
been thinking of, this month back I ^s, my pramous and
T think I should be more independent altogethei, you see,
Ira one my working with a better heart in my own house,
han I coSa hAnyb'ody else's now I don't know what
might be fit for, now, as a servant to a si angei. And 1
shall be always near my pretty s resting .?£*, ^ ™S
<*ottv musino-, " and able to see it when I like ; and wlien i
leTown to fest, I may be laid not far off from my darling

glWe' neither of us said anything for a little white. f

« But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought, said
Pe^ottv cheerily, "if my Davy was anyways against it -
STh^W asked in-church thirty times three times
over, and was wearing out the ring m my pocket

-•Look at me, Peggotty," I replied ; < and see rf I «anot
really glad, and don't truly wish it! " As indeed I aid.
with all my heart

140 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Well, my life," said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, " I
have thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I
hope the right way; but I'll think of it again, and speak to
my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to
ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain cree-
tur'," said Peggotty, "and if I tried to do my duty by him,
I think it would be my fault if I wasn't — if I wasn't pretty
comfortable, " said Peggotty, laughing heartily.

This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and
tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and again,
and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within
view of Mr. Peggotty 's cottage.

It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have
shrunk a little in my eyes ; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting
at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within
was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my
bedroom. I went into the outhouse to look about me ; and
the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish, possessed by
the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to
be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner.

But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr.
Peggotty where she was.

"She's at school, Sir," said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the
heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty' s box from
his forehead ; " she'll be home, " looking at the Dutch clock,
"in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's time. We all
on us feel the loss of her, bless ye."

Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
" Cheer up, Mawther ! " cried Mr. Peggotty.

" I feel it more than anybody else, " said Mrs. Gummidge ;
■'I'm a lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the
only think that didn't go contrairy with me."

Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head,
applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, locking
round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice,
which he shaded with his hand: "The old 'un!" From
this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken
place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge 's
spirits.

Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite
as delightful a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me
in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Per-
haps it was because little Em'ly was not at home. I knew

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 1*1

the way by which she would come, and presently found
myself strolling along the path to meet her.

A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon
knew it to be Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature,
though she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I
saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face
looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a
curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to
know her, and pass by as if I were looking at something a
long way off. I have done such a thing since in later life,
or I am mistaken.

Little Enrly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough ;
but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away
laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so
fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her.

"Oh, it's you, is it? " said little Enrly.

"Why, you knew who it was? Em'ly," said I.

" And didn't you know who it was? " said Em'ly. I was
going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her
hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away,
laughing more than ever, into the house.

She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change
in her I wondered at very much. The tea-table was ready,
and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead
of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company
upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge : and on Mr. Peg-
gotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face
to hide it, and would do nothing but laugh.

" A little puss it is ! " said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with
his great hand.

K So sh' is ! so sh' is ! " cried Ham. " Mas'r Davy bor, so
sh' is ! " and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, ia
a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his
face a burning red.

Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no
one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have
coaxed into anything, by only going and laying her cheek
against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least,
when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be
thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and
sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being
both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more tbar>
ever.

142 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

She was tender-hearted, too ; for when, as we sat round
the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty
over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in
her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table,
that I felt quite thankful to her.

"Ah!" said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and
running them over his hand like water, "here's another
orphan, you see, Sir. And here," said Mr. Peggotty, giving
Ham a back-handed knock in the chest, "is another of
'era, though he don't look much like it."

"If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I.
shaking my head, " I don't think I should, feel much like it. "

" Well said, Mas'r Davy bor' ! " cried Ham, in an ecstasy.
"Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor!
Hor! " — Here he returned Mr. Peggotty 'sback-hander, and
little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty.

" And how's your friend, Sir? " said Mr. Peggotty to me.

" Steerforth? " said I

" That's the name ! " cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham.
"I knowed it was something in our way"

" You said it was Rudderf ord, " observed Ham, laughing.

"Well?" retorted Mr. Peggotty. "And ye steer with a
rudder, don't ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, Sir? "

"He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peg-
gotty "

"There's a friend!" said Mr Peggotty, stretching out
his pipe. " There's a friend, if you talk of friends ! Why,
Lord love my heart alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him ! "

" He is very handsome, is he not? " said I, my heart
warming with this praise.

" Handsome ! " cried Mr. Peggotty. " He stands up to
you like — like a — why, I don't know what he donH stand
up to you like He's so bold! "

"Yes! That's just his character," said I "He's as
brave as a lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr.
Peggotty "

"And I do suppose, now," said Mi- Peggotty, looking at
me through the smoke of his pipe, " that in the way of book-
learning he'd take the wind out of a'most anything."

"Yes," said I, delighted; "he knows everything. Re
is astonishingly clever "

''There's a friend!" murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a
grave toss of his head

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 143

"Nothing seems to cost hini any trouble," said I. " He
knows a task if he only looks at it. • He is the best cricketer
you ever saw. He will give you almost as many men as you
like at draughts, and beat you easily."

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to
say: "Of course he will."

"He is such a speaker," I pursued, "that he can Avin
anybody over; and I don't knoAV what you'd say if you
were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty."

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to
say : " I have no doubt of it."

"Then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow," said I,
quite carried away by my favourite theme, " that it's hardly
possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am
sure I can never feel thankful enough for the generosity
with which he has protected me, so much younger and lower
in the school than himself."

I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested
on little Em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the
table, listening with the deepest attention, her breath held,
her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the colour mantling
in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and
pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder ; and they all
observed her at the same time, for, as I stopped, they
laughed and looked at her.

"Em'ly is like me," said Peggotty, "and would like to
see him."

Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung
down her head, and her face was covered with blushes.
Glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing
that we were all looking at her still (I am sure I, for one,
could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept
away till it was nearly bed-time.

I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat,
and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had
done before. But I could not help fancying, now, that it
moaned of those who were gone; and instead of thinking
that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away,
1 thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those
sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the
wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a
short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow
up to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep.

^44 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

The days passed pretty much as they had passed before,
except — it was a great exception — that little Em'13- and I
seldom wandered on the beach now. She had tasks to learn,
and needlework to do ; and was absent during a great part
of each day. But I felt that we should not have had those
old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and
full of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was more of a little
woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got a
great distance away from me, in little more than a year.
She liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me ;
and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and
was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed.
The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the
doorway, and I sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading
to her. It seems to me, at this hour, that I have never seen
such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons ; that I
have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see,
sitting in the doorway of the old boat ; that I have never
beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing
away into golden air.

On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis
appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition,
and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief.
As he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he
was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when
he went away ; until Ham, running after him to restore it,
came back with the information that it was intended for
Peggotty. After that occasion he appeared every evening
at exactly the same hour, and always with a little bundle,
to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put
behind the door, and left there. These offerings of affection
were of a most various and eccentric description Among
them I remember a double set of pigs' trotters, a huge
pincushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet ear-
rings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary
bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.

Mr. Barkis' s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of
a peculiar kind. He very seldom said anything ; but would
sit by the fire in much the same attitude as he sat in, in his
cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, who was opposite One
night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he made a dart
at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put ir,
in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that his

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 145

great delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking
to the lining of his pocket, in a partially melted state, and
pocket, it again when it was done with. He seemed to enjoy
Cself verV mnch, and not to feel at all called upon to talk^
Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the fiats he
had no uneasiness on that head, I believe ; contenting himself
with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable ,
and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty
would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for halt-au-
hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused, except
that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courts hip would
appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature she was
so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one.
At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired,
it was given out that Peggotty and Mr Barkis were going
to make a day's holiday together, and that little Em ly and
I were to accompany them. I had but a broken sleep he
night before, in anticipation of the pleasure or a who e day
with Em'ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning,
and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared
in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards the object of

hipegtott°;Swas dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet
mourning; but Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new bluB coat, ,of
which the tailor had given him such good measure, that the
cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest
weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his
hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons
too, were of the largest size. Rendered ^PjfM^
pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Baikis a
phenomenon of respectability. . , .. 'a t f„,„,rl

P When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found
that Mr Pe<*eottv was prepared with an old shoe, wlncn
was tfte ^wn after us for luck, and which he offered to
Mrs. Guinmidge for that purpose iwi'i

« No It had better be done by somebody else, Dan 1,
said Mrs. Gummidge. "I'm a lone lorn creetur myself,
and everythink that reminds me of creeturs that am t lone
and lorn, soes contrairy with nie."

-Come, old gal"' cried Mr. Peggotty . " Take and heave

lt!"No, Dan'l," returned Mrs Gummidge, whimpering and
shaking her head. " If I felt less, I could do more. You
10

146 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

don't feel like me, Dan'l; thinks don't go contrairy with
you, nor you with them; you had better do it yourself."

But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one
to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out
from the cart, in which, we all were by this time (Em'ly
and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gum-
midge must do it. So Mrs. Gum midge did it; and, I am
sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of
our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and
sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration
that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried
to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible
idea, that Ham might have acted on.

Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion ; and
the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr.
Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peg-
gotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I
took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and
propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we
should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and
very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing
me to kiss her, I became desperate ; informing her, I recol-
lect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared
to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affec-
tions.

How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With
what a demure assumption of being immensely older and
wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was " a silly boy ;"
and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of
being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of
looking at her.

Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church,
but came out at last, and then we drove away into the
country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to
me, and said, with a wink, — by-the-by, I should hardly
have thought, before, that he could wink:

" Wfiat name was it as I wrote up in the cart? "

"Clara Peggotty," I answered.

" What name would it be as I should write up now, if
there was a tilt here? "

"Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested

" Clara Peggotty Barkis ! " he returned, and burst into a
roar of laughter that shook the chaise.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 147

In a word, they were married, and had gone into the
church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that
4 should be quietly done ; and the clerk had given her away
and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony, bhe was
a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt an-
nouncement of their union, and could not hug me enough in
token of her unimpaired affection; out she soon became
herself again, and said she was very glad it was over.

We drove to a little inn in a bye-road,, where we were
expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and
passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had
been married every day for the last ten years,, |he could
hardly have been more at her ease about it ; it made no sort
of difference in her : she was just the same as ever, and went
out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while
Mr Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed
himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness
If so, it sharpened his appetite ; for I distinctly call to mmd
that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens
at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was
obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of
a large quantity without any emotion.

I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent out
of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got
tato the chaise again soon after dark and drove cosily d.ack
looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their
chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mmd to an amazing
extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed
anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to
hint; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and
informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that
I was "a young Roeshus "-by which I think he meant

PrWhen we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather
when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis,
little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old w ^pper, and sat
under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her!
What happiness (I thought) if we were married and were
aoing away anywhere to live among the trees and in the
lelds, never growing older, never growing wiser, children
*vr 'rambling hand°in hand through sunshine and among
ftowe.ry meadows, laying down our heads on ino* * at mgh£
Sn a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and mined by the birds

148 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

when we were dead ! Some such picture, with no real world
in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as
the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad
to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's
marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think
the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely
procession.

Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night r
and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove
away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first
time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed
with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which
sheltered little Em'ly's head.

Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts
as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their
hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and
sat beside me on the locker for the only time in all that
visit ; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderf ul
day.

It was a night tide ; and soon after we went to bed, Mr.
Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at
being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly
and Mrs. G-unimidge, and only wished that a lion or a ser-
pent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack
upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with
glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking
about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best
substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning.

With morning came Peggotty ; who called to me, as usual,
under my window, as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been
from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me
to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of
all the movables in it, I must have been most impressed by
a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlour (the
tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a
retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk,
within which was a large quarto edition of Foxe's Book of
Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect
one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied
myself to ; and I never visited the house afterwards, but 1
kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was
enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devour-
ing the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 143

the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds
of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house
have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now

I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gum-
midge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at
Peggotty's in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-
book on a shelf by the bed's head), which was to be always
mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in
•exactly the same state.

" Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have
this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find
it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep
it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my
darling ; and if you was to go to China, you might think of
it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away."

I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with
all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That
was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms
round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in
the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself
and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not
easily or lightly ; and it was a strange sight to me to see the
cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the
old elm-trees looking at the house in which there was no
face to look on mine with love or liking any more.

And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot
look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a
solitary condition, — apart from all friendly notice, apart
from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from
all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts, — which
seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write

What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest
school that ever was kept! — to have been taught something,
anyhow, anywhere ! Xo such hope dawned upon me . They
disliked me ; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked
me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at
about this time ; but it is little to the purpose. He could
not bear me ; and in putting me from him, he tried, as I
believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon
him — and succeeded.

I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved ;
but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of
relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner

150 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was
coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it,
what they would have done if I had been taken with an
illness ; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room,
and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or
whether anybody would have helped me out.

When Mr and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my
meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by
myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neigh-
bourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous
of my making any friends : thinking, perhaps, that if I did^
I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr
Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower,
having, some years before that, lost a little small light-
haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my
own thoughts with a pale tortoise shell cat), it was but
seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon
in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new
to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming
up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his
mild directions.

For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of
her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to
her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere
near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many
and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused
permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few
times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there ;
and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a
miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was " a little
near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed,
which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In
this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious
modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted
out by artifice ; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and
elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Satur-
day's expenses.

All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any
promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that
I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt,
but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and
I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them
over and over I don't know how many times more

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 15?

I no* approach a period of my life, which I can never
lose the remembrance of, while I remember anything; and
the recollection of which has often, withont my invocation,
come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times.

I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, m the list-
less, meditative manner that my way of life engendered,
when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came
upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was
confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman
cried ■

-What? Brooks?"
" No, Sir, David Copperfield," I said.
" Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman.
« You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name.

At these words, I observed the gentleman more atten-
tively His laugh coming to my remembrance too, 1 knew
him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft
with Mr. Murdstone to see, before— it is no matter-I need
not recall when. . ,

" And how do you get on, and where are you being edu-
cated, Brooks? " said Mr. Quinion.

- He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me
about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply,
and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone.

« He is at home a. present," said the latter. "He is not
being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with
him. He is a difficult subject."

That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then
his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, m its aversion,

elsewhere. ; , . ,,, T

"Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us botn, 1

thought. "Fine weather!

Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best

disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when

"I* suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh,

Brooks9 "

« Ay! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impa-
tiently. " You had better let him go. He will not thank
you for troubling him."

On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the
best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into
the front garden, I saw Mr Murdstone leaning agamst the

152 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE5

wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him.
They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were
speaking of me.

Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast,
the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going
out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He
then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat
herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his
pockets, stood looking out of window ; and I stood looking
at them all.

" David," said Mr. Murdstone, " to the young this is a
world for action; not for moping and droning in."

" — As you do," added his sister.

" Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say5
David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for
\ioping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy
of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting ;
and to which no greater service can be done than to force it
to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend
it and break it."

"For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister.
" What it wants is, to be crushed. And crushed it must
be. Shall be, too!"

He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval,
and went on :

" I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At
any rate, you know it now. You have received some
considerable education already. Education is costly ; and
even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion
that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept
at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world;
and the sooner you begin it, the better."

I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, ir
my poor way : but it occurs to me now, whether or no.

" You have heard ' the counting-house ' mentioned some-
times," said Mr. Murdstone.

" The counting-house, Sir? " I repeated.

" Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied.

I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily :

' You have heard the ' counting-house ' mentioned, or the
business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about
it."

" I think I have heard the business mentioned, Sir»" I

OF DAVID COPPEh^IELD. 153

said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his
sister's resources. "But I don't know when."

" It does not matter when," he returned. " Mr. Quinion
manages that business."

I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood lookmg
out of window.

" Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some
other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on
the same terms, give employment to you."

" He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and
half turning round, " no other prospect, Murdstone."

Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture,
resumed, without noticing what he had said:

" Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself
to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money.
Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by
me. So will your washing."

" Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his
sister.

" Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said
Mr. Murdstone ; " as you will not be able, yet awhile, to
get them for yourself. So you are now going to London,
David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own
account."

"In short, you are provided for," observed his sister;
"and will please to do your duty."

Though I quite understood that the purpose of this
announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct
remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My
impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it,
and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither.
Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, a?
Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow.

Behold me, on the morrow, in a much- worn little white
hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black
jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers— which
Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in
that fight with the world which was now to come off : behold
me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in
a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge
might have said), in the post-chaise that was carrying Mr
Quiniori to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how oui
house and church are lessening in the distance; how the

154 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects,
how the spire points upward from my old playground no
more, and the sky is empty !

CHAPTER XI.

: BEGIN LIFE ON JVIY OWN ACCOUNT AND DON'T
LIKE IT.

I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the
capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is
matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have
been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of
excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation,
quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it
seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any
sign in my behalf. But nono was made ; and I became, at
ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of
Murdstone and Grinby.

Murdstone and Grinby' s warehouse was at the water-side.
It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have
altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom
of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some
stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy
old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water
when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was
out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms,
discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I
dare say ; its decaying floors and staircase ; the squeaking
and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars ; and
the dirt and rottenness of the place ; are things, not of many
years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They
are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I
went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand
in Mr. Quinion's.

Murdstone and Grinby' s trade was among a goon, many
kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the
supply of wines and spirits to certain packet-ships. I forget
now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some
among them that made voyages both to the East and West

OF DAVID (JOPPEKF1ELD. 155

Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one
of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and
boys were employed to examine them against the light, and
reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them.
When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be
pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals
to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in
casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys em-
ployed upon it I was one.

There were three or four of us, counting me. My working
place was established in a corner of the warehouse, whert
Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the
bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at
me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first
morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own
account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to
show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and
he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me
that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black
velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also
informed me that our principal associate would be another
boy whom he introduced by the — to me — extraordinary
name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this
youth had not been christened by that name, but that it
had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account
of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy' s
father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction
of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the
large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy' s — I
think his little sister — did Imps in the Pantomimes.

No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I
sank into this companionship , compared these henceforth
every-day associates with those of my happier childhood —
not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those
boys ; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and
distinguished man crushed in my bosom. The deep remem-
brance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope
now ; of the shame I felt in my position ; of the misery it
was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I
had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my
fancy and my emulation up by,' would pass away from me,
little by little, never to be brought back any more ; cannot
be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the

156 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water
in which I was washing the bottles ; and sobbed as if there
were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of
bursting.

The counting-house clock was at half -past twelve, and
there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr.
Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned
to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish,
middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights
and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a
large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and
with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me.
His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar
on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair
of rusty tassels to it ; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his
coat, — for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom
looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did.

"This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he."

"This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending
Toll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing
something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is
Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, Sir? "

I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was suffi-
ciently ill at ease, Heaven knows ; but it was not in my
nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said
I was very well, and hoped he was.

"I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well.
I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he
mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apart-
ment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccu-
pied— and is, in short, to be let as a — in short," said the
stranger, with a smile and in a burst of -confidence, " as a
bedroom — the young beginner whom I have now the

pleasure to " and the stranger waved his hand, and

settled his chin in his shirt-collar.

" This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me.

"Ahem! " said the stranger, "that is my name."

"Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr.
Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when
he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone,
on the subject of your lodgings, *.nd he will receive you as
a lodger."

"My address," said Mr. Micawber. "is Windsor Terrace,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 157

City Road. I- in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the
eSe genteel air, and in another burst of confidence- I
live there."

« UndeAhe Lprlssion," said Mr. Micawber, "that your
peregrinations in this metropolis have not m jrt hw
extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in pene-
lating the arcana of the Modem Babylon hi the, directum
of the°City Koad-in short," said Mr. Micawber, in anothei
burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself-I shall
be happy to call this evening, and instal you in the knowl-

etthLtdnhr^hayall my heart, for it was friendly in
him to oSer to take that trouble.

"At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, shall I

" At about eight," said Mr. Quimon.
"At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish
you good day, Mr. Qumiou. I will intrude no longer
y Sog he pn ton his hat, and went out with his cane under
his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was
clear of the counting-house.

Mr Quinion then formally engaged me to be , asuseftj **
I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinhy, at a
salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not cteai
whe tn r it was 'six or seven. I am inclined to Relieve from
my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at fir t and
seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from h* own
pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to
EJ trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being
too helvy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence
morefoYmy dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a
neighbouring pump ; and passed the hour which was allowed
for that meal, in walking about the streets.

At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber
reappeared. Vashed my hands and face to do the greater
honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as 1
suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber im-
SgJ names of streets, and the shapes of corner
Cses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my

WiSattyCn^Lw3r Terrace (which Inoticed
wat shabby Uke himself, but also, like himself, made aU
Sto stw I could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawoer, a

158 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting j
the parlour (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, ami
the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), with
a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins ; and I
may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience
of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs.
Micawber at the same time. One of them was always
taking refreshment.

There were two other children ; Master Micawber, aged
about four, and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These,
and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of
snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me,
before half-an-hour had expired, that she was " a Orfling,"
and came from St. Luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood,
completed the establishment. My room was at the top of
the house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over
with an ornament which my young imagination represented
as a blue muffin ; and very scantily furnished.

"I never thought," said Mrs. Micawber, when she came
up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down
to take breath, " before I was married, when I lived with
papa and mama, that I should ever find it necessary to take
a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all con-
siderations of private feeling must give way."

I said: "Yes, ma'am."

" Mr. Micawber' s difficulties are almost overwhelming j ust
at present, " said Mrs. Micawber ; " and whether it is possible
to bring him through them, I don't know. When I lived
at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly
understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I
now employ it, but experientia does it — as papa used to
say."

I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr.
Micawber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I
have imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hour
that he was in the Marines once upon a time, without
knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number
of miscellaneous houses, now ; but made little or nothing of
it, I am afraid.

"If Mr. Micawber' s creditors will not give him time,"
said Mrs. Micawber, "they must take the consequences;
and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Blood
cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can* anything or

• DJLTID COPPERFIEIX. 159

account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses)
from Mr. Micawber."

I never can quite understand whether my precocious -
dependence confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age,
or whether she was so full of the subject that she would
have talked about it to the very twins if there had been
nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in
which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time
1 knew her.

Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert
herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of
the street-door was perfectly covered with a great brass
plate, on which was engraved '-'Mrs. Micawber s Boarding
Establishment for Young Ladies ; *? but I never found that
any young lady had ever been to school there ; or that any
young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the
least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady.
The only visitors I ever saw or heard of, were creditors
They used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite
ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-
maker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as
seven o'clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr.
Micawber— "Come! You ain't out yet, you know. Pay
as, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. ^ I
wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You
just pay us, d'ye hear ? Come ! " Receiving no answer to
these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words
" swindlers " and " robbers ;" and these being ineffectual too,
would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street,
and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he
knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber
would be transported with grief and mortification, even to
the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his
, wife) of making motions at himself with a razor ; but within
' half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with
extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a
greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite
as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits
by the King's taxes at three o'clock, and to eat lanib-chops,
breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two teaspoons
that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one occa-
sion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home
through some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying

160 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

(of course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with hen
hair all torn about her face ; but I never knew her more
cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal-
cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her
papa and mama, and the company they used to keep.

In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure
time. My own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a
pennyworth of milk, I provided myself, I kept another
small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particular shelf
of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I came
back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shil-
lings, I know well ; and I was out at the warehouse all day,
and had to support myself on that money all the week.
From Monday morning until Saturday night, I had no
advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no
assistance, no support, of any kind, from any one, that I
"an call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven !

I was so young and childish, and so little qualified — how
could I be otherwise? — to undertake the whole charge of
my own existence, that often, in going to Murdstone and
Grinby's, of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastry
put out for sale at half-price at the pastry-cooks' doors, and
spent in that, the money I should have kept for my dinner.
Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice
of pudding. I remember two pudding-shops, between which
I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court
close to St. Martin's Church — at the back of the church, —
which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that
shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pud-
ding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a
pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for
the latter was in the Strand — somewhere in that part which
has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy
and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole
at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time
every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined
regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny
loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's shcp;
or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from :
miserable old public-house opposite our place of business,
called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have
forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which
I had brought from home in the morning) under my arm»

OF DAVID (JOPPERFIELD. 161

wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a
famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering
a "small plate " of that deiicacy to eat with it. What the
waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in
all alone, I don't know; but I can see him now, staring at
me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter
to look. I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and^T wish
he hadn't taken it.

We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had
money enough, I used to get half-a-pint of ready-made
coffee and a slice of bread and butter. When I had none,
I used to look at a venison-shop in Fleet Street ; or I have
strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market,
and stared at the pine-apples. I was fond of wandering
about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with
those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening
from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to
the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-
heavers were dancing ; to look at whom, I sat down upon a
bench. I wonder what they thought of me!

I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I
went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of
ale or porter, to moisten what I had had for dinner, they
were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I
went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the land-
lord:

"What is your best — your very best — ale a glass? " For
it was a special occasion. I don't know what. It may
have been my birthday.

"Twopence-halfpenny," says the landlord, "is the price
of the Genuine Stunning ale."

"Then," says I, producing the money, "just draw me a
glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good
head to it."

The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from
head to foot, with a strange smile on his face ; and instead
of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said some-
thing to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her
work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here
we stand, all three, before me now. • The landlord in his
shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar win do w -frame ; his
wife looking over the little half -door, and I, in some
confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition.

162 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

They asked nie a good many questions ; as, what my name
was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed,
and how I came there. To all of which, that I might
commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate an-
swers. They served me with the ale, though T suspect it
was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's wife,
opening the little half- door of the bar, and bending down,
gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half
admiring, and half compassionate, but all womanly and
good, I am sure.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and uninten-
tionally, the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of
my life. I know that if a shilling were given me by Mr.
Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know
that 1 worked from morning until night, with common men
and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the
streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that,
but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any
care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vaga-
bond-
Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too.
Besides that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so
occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to
treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, I
never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be
there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was
there. That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered
exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered,
it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to
tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I
knew from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well
as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and
contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as
skilful as either of the other boys. Though perfectly
familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different
enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and
the men generally spoke of me as "the little gent," or "the
young Suffolker." A certain man named Gregory, who was
foreman of the packers, and another named Tipp, who was
the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to address me
sometimes as " David :" but I think it was mostly when we
were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts
to entertain them, over our work, with some results of the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 163

old readings ; which were fast perishing out of my remem-
brance Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against
my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him in
no time.

My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite
hopeless, and abandoned, as such, altogether. I am sol-
emnly convinced that I never for one hour was reconciled
to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy ; but I bore
it ; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and
partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed
between us) revealed the truth.

Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the dis-
tressed state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became
quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy
with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and means, and
heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. On a
Saturday night, which was my grand treat, — partly because
it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings
in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what such
a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early, —
Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confi-
dences to me ; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the
portion of tea or coffee I had bought overnight, in a little
shaving-pot, and sat late at my breakfast. It was nothing
at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob violently at the
beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations, and
sing about Jack' s delight being his lovely Nan, towards the
end of it. I have known him come home to supper with a
flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left
but a jail ; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense
of putting bow-windows to the house, " in case anything
turned up," which was his favourite expression. And Mrs.
Micawber was just the same

A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose,
in our respective circumstances, sprang up between me and
these people, notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our
years. But I never allowed myself to be prevailed upon tc
accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of their
stock (knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and
baker, and had often not too much for themselves), until
Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence. This
she did one evening as follows : —

"Master Copperfield. " said Mrs. Micawber, "I make no

164 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

stranger of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that
Mr. Micawber's difficulties are coming to a crisis."

It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at
Mrs. Micawber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy.

" With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese —
which is not adapted to the wants of a young family " — said
Mrs. Micawber, " there is really not a scrap of anything in
the larder. I was accustomed to speak of the larder when
I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost
unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is
nothing to eat in the house."

"Dear me! " I said, in great concern.

I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my
pocket — from which I presume that it must have been on
a Wednesday night when we held this conversation— and I
hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion begged
Mrs Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady,
kissing me, and making me put them back in my pocket,
replied that she couldn't think of it.

"No, my dear Master Copperheld," said she, "far be it
from my thoughts ! But you have a discretion beyond your
years, and can render me another kind of service, if you
will; and a service I will thankfully accept of."

I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.

" I have parted with the plate myself," said Mrs Micaw-
ber. " Six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at
-different times borrowed money on, in secret, with my own
hands. But the twins are a great tie ; and to me, with my
recollections of papa and mama, these transactions are very
painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part
with. Mr. Micawber's feelings would never allow him to
dispose of them ; and Clickett " — this was the girl from the
workhouse — "being of a vulgar mind, would take painful
liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master
■Copperfield, if I might ask you " —

I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make
mse of me to any extent. I began to dispose of the more
portable articles of property that very evening ; and went
<out on a similar expedition almost every morning, before I
~went to Murdstone and Grinby's.

Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, whicl
he called the library ; and those went first. I carried them
one after another, to a bookstall in the City Road — one part

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 165

of which, near our house, was almost all bookstalls and
bird-shops then— and sold them for whatever they would
bring The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little
house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be
violently scolded by his wife every morning. More than
once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in a
turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eyec
bearing witness to his excesses overnight (I am afraid he
was quarrelsome in his drink), and he with a shaking hand,
endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of
the pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while
his wife, with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at
heel, never left off rating him. Sometimes he had lost his
money, and then he would ask me to call again ; but his.
wife had always got some— had taken his, I dare say, while
he was drunk — and secretly completed the bargain on the
stairs, as we went down together.

At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well
known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the
counter, took a good deal of notice of me ; and often got me,
I recollect, to decline a Latin noun or adjective, or to con-
jugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while he transacted my
business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made a
little treat, which was generally a supper ; and there was a
peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember.

At last Mr. Micawber' s difficulties came to a crisis, and
he was arrested early one morning, and carried over to the
King's Bench Prison in the Borough. He told me, as he
went out of the house, that the God of day had now gone
down upon him— and I really thought his heart was broken
and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen
to play a lively game at skittlesa before noon.

On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to
go and see him, and have dinner with him. I was to ask
my way to such a place, and just short of that place I
should see such another place, and just short of that I
should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight
on until I saw a turnkey. All this I did ; and when at last
I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I was !), and
thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtors'
prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but an
old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my
beating heart.

166 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and
re went np to his room (top story bnt one), and cried very
flinch. He solemnly conjnred me, I remember, to take
warning by his fate ; and to observe that if a man had
twenty pounds a year for his income, and spent nineteen
pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy,
but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miser-
able. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter,
gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount,
and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.

We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the
rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too
many coals ; until another debtor, who shared the room with
Mr. Micawber, came in from the bakehouse with the loin
af mutton which was our joint-stock repast. Then I was
sent up to " Captain Hopkins " in the room overhead, with
Mr. Micawber' s compliments, and I was his young friend,
and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.

Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his
compliments to Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty
lady in his little room, and two wan girls, his daughters,
with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better to borrow
Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins's
comb. The Captain himself was in the last extremity of
shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown
great-coat with no other coat below it. I saw his bed
rolled up in a corner ; and what plates and dishes and pots
he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that
though the two girls with the shock heads of hair were
Captain Hopkins's children, the dirty lady was not married
to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his threshold
was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most ;
but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as
surely as the knife and fork were in my hand.

There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the
dinner, after all. I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and
fork early in the afternoon, and went home to comfort Mrs.
Micawber with an account of my visit. She fainted when
she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot after-
wards to console us while we talked it over.

I don't know how the household furniture came to be
sold for the family benefit, or who sold it, except that / did
not. Sold it was, however, and carried away in 9 van;

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 167

except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen-table. With
these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two
parlours of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace ; Mrs.
Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and myself ; and lived
in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long,
though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Mi-
cawber resolved to move into the prison, where Mr. Micaw-
ber had now secured a room to himself. So I took the key
of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it ;
and the beds were sent over to the King's Bench, except
mine, for which a little room was hired outside the walls in
the neighbourhood of that Institution, very much to my
satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used
to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was
likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the
same neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret with
a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect of a timber-
yard ; and when I took possession of it, with the reflection
that Mr. Micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, I
thought it quite a paradise.

All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's-
in the same common way, and with the same common com-
panions, and with the same sense of unmerited degradation
as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt, made a
single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom
I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from itr
and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. I led the
same secretly unhappy life ; but I led it in the same lonely,
self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of
are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and secondly,
that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber's cares; for some relatives or friends had
engaged to help them at their present pass, and they lived
more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a
long while out of it. I used to breakfast with them now,
in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten
the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were
opened in the morning, admitting of my going in ; but I
know that I was often up at six o'clock, and that my favour-
ite lounging-place in the interval was old London Bridge,
where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watch-
ing the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at
the sun shining in the water, and lighting up the golden

168 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

flame on the top of the Monument . The Orfling met me
here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respect-
ing the wharves and the Tower ; of which I can say no more
than that I hope I believed them myself. In the evening
I used to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the
parade with Mr. Micawber; or play casino with Mrs.
Micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama.
Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable to
say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's.

Mr, Micawber' s affairs, although past their crisis, were
very much involved by reason of a certain " Deed," of which
I used to hear a great deal, and which I suppose, now, to
have been some former composition with his creditors,
though I was so far from being clear about it then, that I
am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal
parchments which are held to have, once upon a time,
obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last this docu-
ment appeared to be got out of the way, somehow ; at all
events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs.
Micawber informed me that " her family " had decided that
Mr. Micawber should apply for his release under the
Insolvent Debtors' Act, which would set him free, she
expected, in about six weeks.

" And then," said Mr. Micawber, who was present, "I
have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be before-
hand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner,
if — in short, if anything turns up."

By way of going in for anything that might be on the
cards, I call to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time,
composed a petition to the House of Commons, praying for
an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt. I set
down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to
myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my
altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets,
and out of men and women ; and how some main points in
the character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in
writing my life, were gradually forming all this while.

There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber,
as a gentleman, was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had
stated his idea of this petition to the club, and the club had
strongly approved of the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber
(who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a
creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed,

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 169

-and never so happy as when he was busy about something
that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the
petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of
paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all
the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up
to his room and sign it.

"When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so
anxious to see them all come in, one after another, though
I knew the greater part of them already, and they me, that
I got an hour's leave of absence from Murdstone and
Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that pur-
pose. As many of the principal members of the club as
could be got into the small room without filling it, supported
Mr. Micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend
Captain Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honour
to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close to it, to
read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents.
The door was then thrown open, and the general population
began to come in, in a long file : several waiting outside,
while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. To
everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins said : " Have you
lead it? "— " No. " - " Would you like to hear it read? " If
;he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain
Hopkins, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of
it. The Captain would have read it twenty thousand times,
if twenty thousand people would have heard him, one by
•one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such
phrases as "The people's representatives in Parliament
assembled, " " Your petitioners therefore humbly approach
your honourable House," "His gracious Majesty's unfor-
tunate subjects," as if the words were something real in his
mouth, and delicious to taste ; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile,
listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contem-
plating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall.

As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and
Blackfriars, and lounged about at meal-times in obscure
streets, the stones of which may, for anything I know, be
worn at this moment by my childish feet, I wonder how
many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used
to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of
•Captain Hopkins's voice! 'When my thoughts go back
now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much
■of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist

170 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of fancy over well-remembered facts ! When I tread the
old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity,
going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his
imaginative world out of such strange experiences and
sordid things!

CHAPTER XII.

LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTERS I
FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION.

In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing ;
and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the
Act, to my great joy. His creditors were not implacable;
and Mrs. Micawber informed me that even the revengeful
bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore him
no malice, but that when money was owing to him he
liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human
nature.

Mr. Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his
case was over, as some fees were to be settled, and some
formalities observed, before he could be actually released.
The club received him with transport, and held an harmonic
meeting that evening in his honour ; while Mrs. Micawber
and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping
family.

" On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,"
said Mrs. Micawber, "in a little more flip," for we had been
having some already, "the memory of my papa and mama."

"Are they dead, ma'am? " I inquired, after drinking the
toast in a wine-glass.

"My mama departed this life," said Mrs. Micawber,
" before Mr. Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least
before they became pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr.
Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by a
numerous circle."

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear
upon the twin who happened to be in hand.

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity
of putting a question in which I had a near interest, I sair1
to Mrs. Micawber ■

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 171

"May I aslij ma'ani, what you and Mr. Micawber intend
to do, now that Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and
at liberty? Have you settled yet? "

" My family,'-" said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those
two words with an air, though I never could discover who
came under the denomination, " my family are of opinion
that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert his talents
in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent,
Master Copperfield."

I said I was sure of that.

'k Of great talent, " repeated Mrs. Micawber. " My family
are of opinion, that, with a little interest, something might
be done for a man of his ability in the Custom House. The
influence of my family being local, it is their wish that Mr.
Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it
indispensable that he should be upon the spot."

" That he may be ready? " I suggested.

"Exactly," returned Mrs. Micawber. "That he may be
ready — in case of anything turning up."

"And do you go too, ma'am? "

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if
not with the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and
she shed tears as she replied :

" I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may
have concealed his difficulties from me in the first instance,
but his sanguine temper may have led him to expect that
he would overcome them. The pearl necklace and bracelets
which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for less
than half their value ; and the set of coral, which was the
wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away
for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber.
No ! " cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, " I
aever will do it ! It's of no use asking me ! "

I felt quite uncomfortable — as if Mrs. Micawber supposed
I had asked her to do anything of the sort ! — and sat looking
at her in alarm.

" Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is
improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark
as to his resources and his liabilities, both," she went on,
looking at the wall ; " but I never will desert Mr. Micaw-
ber! "

Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect
scream, I was so frightened that 1 ran off to the club-room,

172 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and disturbed Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long
table, and leading the chorus of

1 Gee up, Dobbin,
Gee ho, Dobbin,
Ge» up, Dobbin,
Gee up, and gee ho— o — o»

—with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming
state, upon which he immediately burst into tears, and came
away with me with his waistcoat full of the heads and tails
of shrimps, of which he had been partaking.

" Emma, my angel ! " cried Mr. Micawber, running into
the room ; " what is the matter? "

"I never will desert you, Micawber! " she exclaimed.

" My life ! " said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms.
"I am perfectly aware of it."

" He is the parent of my children ! He is the father of
my twins ! He is the husband of my affections, " cried Mrs.
Micawber, struggling; "and I ne — ver — will — desert Mr.

Micawber ! "

Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her
devotion (as to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung
over her in a passionate manner, imploring her to look up,
and to be calm. But the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to
look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing ; and the
more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't.
Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he
mingled his tears with hers and mine ; until he begged me
to do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase, while
he got her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the
night, but he would not hear of my doing that until the
strangers' bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase wir •
dow, until he came out with another chair and joined me

" How is Mrs. Micawber now, Sir? " I said.

'Very low," said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head:
''re-action. Ah, this has been a dreadful day! We stand
alone now — everything is gone from us! "

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and after-
wards shed tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed
too, for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this
happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that
they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that
they were released from them All their elasticity was

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 173

departed, and I never saw them half so wretched as on this
night ; insomuch that when the bell rang, and Mr. Micawber
walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there with
a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he
was so profoundly miserable.

But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in
which we had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I
plainly discerned that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and their
family were going away from London, and that a parting
between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home
that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when
I lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me— though
I don't know how it came into my head— which afterwards
shaped itself into a settled resolution.

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, ana
had been so intimate with them in their distresses, and was
so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being
thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once
more among unknown people, was like being that moment
turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge
of it ready made, as experience had given me. All the
sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and
misery it kept alive within my breast, became more poignant
as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was
unendurable.

That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape
was my own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from
Miss Murdstone, and never from Mr. Murdstone : but two
or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for
me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was a scrap
of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying
himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his
duties— not the least hint of my ever being anything else
than the common drudge into which I was fast settling down.

The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the
first agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber
had not spoken of their going away without warrant. They
took a lodging in the house where I lived, for a week ; at
the expiration of which time they were to start for Plymouth.
.Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in
the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish
me on the day of his departure, and go give me a higb
character, which I am sure I desert- i- Ajid Mr. Quinion.

174 PERSONAL HISTOKi AND EXPERIENCE

calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and
dad a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him — by
our mutual consent, as he had every reason to think ; for I
daid nothing, though my resolution was now taken.

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during
the remaining term of our residence under the same roof ;
and I think we became fonder of one another as the time
went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me to dinner ;
and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding.
I had bought a spotted wooden horse overnight as a parting
gift to little Wilkins Micawber — that was the boy — and a
doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the
Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a
tender state about our approaching separation.

"I shall never, Master Copperfleld," said Mrs. Micawber,
" revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties
without thinking of you. Your conduct has always been
of the most delicate and obliging description. You have
never been a lodger. You have been a friend."

"My dear, ", said Mr. Micawber, "Copperfleld," for so
he had been accustomed to call me, of late, "has a heart to
feel for the distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are
behind a cloud, and a head to plan, and a hand to — in short;
a general ability to dispose of such available property as
could be made away with."

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I
was very sorry we were going to lose one another.

"My dear young friend, " said Mr. Micawber, "I am older
than you ; a man of some experience in life, and — and of
some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking -
At present, and until something turns up (which I am, 1
may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but
advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that — in
short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the " — here
Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over
his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself
and frowned — "the miserable wretch you behold."

"My dear Micawber! " urged his wife.

" I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself,
and smiling again, " the miserable wretch you behold. My
advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day-
Procrastination Is the vhief of time. Collar him I r

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 175

'My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "your papa was very
well in bis way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage
him. Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall — in short,
make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possess-
ing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to
read the same description of print, without spectacles. But
he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that
was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I
never recovered the expense."

Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added :
" Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love. "
After which he was grave for a minute or so.

" My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual
income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds
ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the
leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary
scene and — and in short you are for ever floored. As I
am!"

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber
drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and
satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these pre-
cepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so,
for, at the time, they affected me visibly. Next morning I
met the whole family at the coach-office, and saw them,
with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back.

"Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "God bless
you ! I never can forget all that, you know, and I never
would if I could."

"Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "farewell! Every
happiness and prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving
years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had
been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied
another man' s place in existence altogether in vain. In case
of anything turning up (of which I an rather confident), I
shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to
improve your prospects."

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach,
with the children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully
at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a

176 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

little creature I really was. I think so, because she beckoned
tome to climb up, with quite anew and motherly expression
in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me
just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I
had barely time to get down again before the coach started,
and I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they
waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orflingand I stood
looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road,
and then shook hands and said good-bye ; she going back,
I suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my
weary day at Murdstone and Grinby's.

But with no intention of passing many more weary days
there. No. I had resolved to run away. — To go, by some
means or other, down into the country, to the only relation I
had in the world, and tell iny story to my aunt, Miss Betsey

I have already observed that I don't know how this des-
perate idea came into my brain. But once there, it remained
there ; and hardened into a purpose than which I have never
entertained a more determined purpose in my life. I am far
from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in it,
but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried
into execution.

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the
aight when the thought had first occurred to me and banished
sleep, I had gone over that old story of my poor mother's
About my birth, which it had been one of my great delights
in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew by heart.
My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a
dread and awful personage ; but there was one little trait in
her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which gave
me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget
how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty
hair with no ungentle hand ; and though it might have been
altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no
foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of
it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty
that I recollected so well and loved so much, which softened
the whole narrative. It is very possible that it had been in
my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my
determination.

As i did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote
a long letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if
she remembered ; pretending that I had heard of snob «

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 177

lady living at a certain place I named at random, and had
a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course of
that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion
for half-a-guinea ; and that if she could lend me that sum
until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged to her,
and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty' s answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full
of affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half -guinea (I
was afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it
out of Mr. Barkis' s box), and told me that Miss Betsey
lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,
Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our
men, however, informing me on my asking him about these
places, that they were all close together, I deemed this
enough for my object, and resolved to set out at the end of
that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to
disgrace the memory I was going to leave behind me at
Murdstone and Grinby's, I considered myself bound to
remain until Saturday night; and, as I had been paid a
week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to
present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to
receive my stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed
the half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my
travelling expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night
came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid,
and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in
first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand ;
asked him, when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to
Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move my box to Tipp's;
and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes, ran
away.

My box was at my old lodging over the water, ana I had
written a direction for it on the back of one of our address
3ards that we nailed on the casks : " Master David, to be
left till called for, at the Coach Office, Dover." This I had
in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should have
got it out of the house ; and as I went towards my lodging
Hooked about me for some one who would helpline to carry
it to the booking-office.

There was a iong-ieggeu young man with a very little
empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Black*
friars Road, whose eye I Caught as I was going by, and whbj

178 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

addressing me as " Sixpenn'orth of bad "ha'pence," hoped
" I should know him again to swear to " — in allusion, I have
no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him
that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether
he might or might not like a job.

" Wot job? " said the long-legged young man.

" To move a box, " I answered.

" Wot box? " said the long-legged young man.

I told him mine, which was down that street there, and
which I wanted him to take to the Dover coach-office ior
sixpence.

" Done with you for a tanner ! " said the long-legged young
man, and directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but
a large wooden tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a
rate, that it was as much as I could do to keep pace with
the donkey.

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and
particularly about the way in which he chewed straw as he
spoke to me, that I did not much like ; as the bargain was
made, however , I took him upstairs to the room I was leaving,
and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. Now,
I was unwilling to put the direction -card on there, lest any
of my landlord's family should fathom what I was doing,
and detain me ; so I said to the young man that I would be
glad if he would stop foi a minute, when he came to the
dead-wall of the King's Bench Prison. The words were no
sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my
box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad ; and I
was quite out of breath with running and calling after him,
when I caught him at the place appointed.

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea
out of my pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my
mouth for safety, and though my hands trembled a good
dea-, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction,
when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the
long-legged young man, and saw my half -guinea fly out of
my mouth into his hand.

"Wot!" said the young man, seizing me by my jacket
collar, with a frightful grin. " This is a pollis case, is it?
You're a going ' ) bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you
young warmin, come to the pollis ! "

" You give me my money back, if you please," said I;
very much frightened ; " and leave me alone."

OF DAVID COfPERFIELD. 179

u Come to the poilis ! " said the young man. " You shall
prove it yourn to the poilis."

" Give me my box and money, will you? " I cried, bursting
into tears.

The young man still replied : " Come to the poilis ! " and
was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner,
as if there were any affinity between that animal and a
magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the
cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive
to the poilis straight, rattled away harder than ever.

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath tc
call out with, and should not have dared to call out, now,
if I had. I narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times
at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him,
now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted
at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into
somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At
length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether
half London might not by this time be turning out for my
apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would
with my box and money; and, panting and crj^ing, but
never stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had
understood was on the Dover road : taking very little more
out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss
Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my
Arrival gave her so much umbrage.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION.

For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of
iunning all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit
of the young man with the donkey-cart, and started for
Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to
that point, if I had ; for I came to a stop in the Kent Eoad,
at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish
image in the middle, blowing a dry snell. Here I sat down
on a door-step, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I
had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry f 01
the loss of my box and half -guinea.

180 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

It was by this time dark ; I heard the clocks strike tei^
as I sat resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately,
and fine weather. When I had recovered my breath, and
had got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up
and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no notion
of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though
there had been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent R,oad.

But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the
world (and I am sure I wonder how they came to be left
in my pocket on a Saturday night!) troubled me none the
less because I went on. I began to picture to myself, as a
scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a
day or two, under some hedge ; and I trudged on miserably,
though as fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little
shop, where it was written up that ladies' and gentlemen's
wardrobes were bought, and that the best price was given
for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master of this shop
was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking ; and as
there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling
from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning
inside to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like
a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his
enemies, and was enjoying himself.

My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber sug-
gested to me that here might be a means of keeping off the
wolf for a little while. I went up the next bye-street, took
off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came
back to the shop-door. "If you please, Sir," I said, "I
am to sell this for a fair price."

Mr. Dolloby — Dolloby was the name over the shop-door,
at least — took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head
against the door-post, went into the shop, followed by me,
snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat
on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up against the
light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said :

"What do you call a price, now, for this here little
weskit? "

"Oh! you know best, Sir," I returned, modestly.

"I can't be buyer and seller too," said Mr. Dolloby.
"Put a price on this here little weskit."

"Would eighteenpence be?" — I hinted, after some
hesitation.

Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. " I

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 181

should rob my family, " he said, "if I was to offer ninepence
for it."

This was a disagreeable way of putting the business;
because it imposed upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleas-
antness of asking Mr. Dolloby to rob his family on my
account. My circumstances being so very pressing, however,
I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr.
Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I
wished him good night, and walked out of the shop, the
richer by that sum, aud the poorer by a waistcoat. But
when I buttoned nr^ jacket, that was not much.

Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go
next, and that I should have to make the best of my way to
Dover in a shirt and a pair of trousers, and might deem
myself lucky if I got there even in that trim. But my
mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed.
Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and
of the young man with the donkey-cart having used me
cruelly, I think I had no very urgent sense of my difficulties
when I once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket.

A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which
I was going to carry into execution. This was, to lie behind
the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where
there used to be a haystack. I imagined it would be a kind
of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where I used
to tell the stories, so near me : although the boys would
know nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would
yield me no shelter.

I had had a hard day's work, and Avas pretty well jaded
when I came climbing out, at last, upon the level of Black-
heath. It cost me some trouble to find out Salem House ;
but I found it, and I found a haystack in the corner, and I
lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and
looked up at che windows, and seen that all was dark and
silent within Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of
first lying down, without a roof above my head !

Sleep came upon me- as it came on many other outcasts,
against whom house-doors were locked, and house-dogs
barked, that night - and I dreamed of lying on my old
school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found
myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon my
lips, looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and
glimmering above me. When I remembered where I was

182 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

at fciiat untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made
me get up, afraid of I don't know what, and walk about.
But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light
in the sky where the day was coming, reassured me : and
my eyes being very heavy, I lay down again, and slept —
though with a knowledge in my sleep that it was cold — until
the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the getting-up
bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that
Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he
came out alone ; but I knew he must have left long since.
Traddles still remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful :
and I had not sufficient confidence in his discretion or good
luck, however strong my reliance was on his good-nature,
to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away
from the wall as Mr. Creakle's boys were getting up, and
struck into the long dusty track which I had first known to
be the Dover road when I was one of them, and when I little
expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer I
was now, upon it.

What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday
morning at Yarmouth ! In due time I heard the church-bells
ringing, as I plodded on ; and I met people who were going
to church ; and I passed a church or two where the congre-
gation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into
the sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the
shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his
hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. But the
peace and the rest of the old Sunday morning were on
everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt
quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair.
But for the quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother
in her youth and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt
relenting to her, I hardly think I should have had courage
to go on until next day. But it always went before me.
and I followed.

I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on
the straight road, though not very easily, for I was new to
that kind of toil. I see myself, as evening closes in, coming
over the bridge at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating
bread that I had bought for supper. One or two little
houses, with the notice, "Lodgings for Travellers," hanging
out, had tempted me ; but I was afraid of spending the few
pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 183

if the tram'pers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter,
therefore, but the sky ; and toiling into Chatham, — which,
in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and draw-
bridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like
Noah's arks — crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown
battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to
and fro. Here I lay down, near a cannon ; and, happy in
the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no
more of my being above him than the boys at Salem House
had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until
morning.

Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and
quite dazed by the beating of drums and marching of troops,
which seemed to hem me in on every side when I went down
towards the long narrow street. Feeling that I could go
but a very little way that clay, if I were to reserve any
strength forgetting to my journey's end, I resolved to make
the sale of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly,
I took the jacket off, that I might learn to do without it;
and carrying it under my arm, began a tour of inspection
of the various slop-shops.

It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers
in second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally
speaking, on the look-out for customers at their shop-doors.
But as most of them had, hanging up among their stock, an
officer's coat or two, epaulettes and all, I was rendered
timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and walked
about for a long time without offering my merchandise to
any one.

This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-
store shops, and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference
to the regular dealers. At last I found one that I thought
looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in
an inclosure full of stinging nettles, against the palings of
which some second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to
have overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots,
and rusty guns, and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of
so many old rusty keys of so many sizes that they seemed
various enough to open all the doors in the world.

Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was
darkened rather than lighted by a little window, overhung
with clothes, and was descended into by some steps, I went
with a palpitating heart; which was not relieved when an

184 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered
with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind
it, and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful
old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling
terribly of rum. His bedstead, covered with a tumbled and
ragged piece of patchwork, was in the den he had come from,
where another little window showed a prospect of more
stinging nettles, and a lame donkey.

a Oh, what do you want? " grinned this old man, in a
fierce, monotonous whine. " Oh, my eyes and limbs, what
do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want?
Oh, goroo, goroo! "

I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly
by the repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind
of rattle in his throat, that I could make no answer ; here-
upon the old man, still holding me by the hair, repeated:

" Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what
do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want?
Oh, goroo!" — which he screwed out of himself, with an
energy that made his eyes start in his head.

" I wanted to know," I said, trembling, " if you would
buy a jacket."

"Oh, let's see the jacket!" cried the old man. "Oh,
my heart on fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and
limbs, bring the jacket out! "

With that he took his trembling hands, which were like
the claws of a great bird, out of my hair ; and put on a pair
of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes.

" Oh, how much for the jacket? " cried the old man, after
examining it. " Oh — goroo ! — how much for the jacket? "

"Half-a-crown," I answered, recovering myself.

• ' Oh, my lungs and liver," cried the old man, "no! Oh,
my eyes, no ! Oh, my limbs, no J Eighteenpence. Goroo ! "

Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed
to be in danger of starting out ; and every sentence he spoke,
he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and
more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up
high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find
for it.

"Well," said I, glad to have closed the bargain, " Fl>
take eighteenpence."

" Oh, my liver! " cried the old man, throwing the jacket
on a shelf. " Get out of the shop ! Oh, my lungs, get out

OF DAVID C^PPERFIELD. 1§5

of the shop! Oh, my eyes aiivi limbs — goroo! — don't ask
for money; make it an exchange."

I never was so frightened in my life, before or since ; but
I told him humbly that I wanted money, and that nothing
else was of any use to me, but that I would wait for it, as
he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry him. So I
went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And
I sat there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight
and the sunlight became shade again, and still I sat there
waiting for the money.

There never was such another drunken madman in thai
line of business, I hope. That he was well known in the
neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of having sold
himself to the devil, I soon understood from the visits he
received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing
about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to
bring out his gold. " You ain't poor, you know, Charley, as
you pretend. Bring out your gold. Bring out some of the
gold you sold yourself to the devil for. Come ! It's in the
lining of the mattress, Charley. Bip it open and let's have
some ! " This, and many offers to lend him a knife for the
purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole
day was a succession of rushes on his part, and flights on
the part of the boys. Sometimes in his rage he would take
me for one of them, and come at me, mouthing as if he
were going to tear me in pieces ; then, remembering me,
just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed,
as I thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic
way, to his own windy tune, the Death of Xelson ; with an
Oh ! before every line, and innumerable Goroos interspersed.
As if this were not bad enough for me, the boys, connecting
me with the establishment, on account of the patience and
perseverance with which I sat outside, half dressed, pelted
me, and used me very ill all day.

He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an
exchange ; at one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at
another with a fiddle, at another with a cocked hat, at
another with a flute. But I resisted all these overtures,
and sat there in desperation ; each time asking him, with
tears m my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he
began to pay me in halfpence at a time ; and was full +wo
hours getting by easy stages to a shilling.

^Oh, my eyes and limbs! " he then cried, peeping hide*

186 PERSONAL HISTORY LNTD EXPERIENCE

ously out of the shop, aftei a xong pause, u will you go foi
twopence more? "

" I can't," I said; "I shall be starved."

" Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence? *

" I would go for nothing, if I could," I said, " but I want
the money badly. "

" Oh, go — roo ! " (it is really impossible to express how
he twisted this ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped
round the door-post at ire, showing nothing but his crafty
old head) ; " will you go for fourpence? "

I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer ;
and taking the money out of his claw, not without trembling,
went away more hungry and thirsty than I had ever been,
a little before sunset. But at an expense of threepence I
soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better
spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road.

My bed at night was under another haystack, where I
rested comfortably, after having washed my blistered feet
in a stream, and dressed them as well as I was able, with
some cool leaves. When I took the road again next morning,
I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds
and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the
orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places
the hop-pickers were already at work. I thought it all
extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to sleep among
the hops that night : imagining some cheerful companionship
in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful leaves
twining round them.

The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired
me with a dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some
of them were most ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at
jae as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after
me to come back and speak to them ; and when I took to
my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow — a
tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and brazier — who had a
woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me
thus ; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to
come back, that I halted and looked round.

" Come here, when you're called," said the tinker, " 01 I'll
rip your young body open."

I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them,
trying to propitiate the tinker by my looks. I observed that
the woman had a black eye

OF DAVID COFPERFIELD. 187

" Wliere are you going? " said the tinker, gripping the
bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand.

"lam going to Dover," I said.

" Where do you come from? " asked the tinker, giving
his hand another turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely

" I come from London," I said.

"What lay are you upon?" asked the tinker. "Are
you a prig? "

" No — no," I said.

" Ain't you, by G ? If you make a brag of your

honesty to me," said the tinker, " Til knock your brains out. '"

With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking
me, and then looked at me from head to foot.

" Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you? "
said the tinker. " If you have, out with it, afore I take it
away ! "

I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the
woman's look, and saw her very slightly shake her head,
and form " No ! " with her lips.

"I am very poor," I said, attempting to smile, "and
have got no money."

"Why, what do you mean?" said the tinker, looking so
sternly at me, that I almost feared he saw the money in
my pocket.

" Sir ! " I stammered.

"What do you mean," said the tinker, "by wearing my
brother's silk handkercher? Give it over here ! " And he
had mine off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the
woman.

The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought
this a joke, and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as
slightly as before, and made the word "Go!" with her
lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker seized the
handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that thre^
me away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his
own neck, turned upon the woman with an oath, and knocked
her down. I never shall forget seeing her fall backward on
the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off,
and her hair all whitened in the dust ; nor, when I looked
back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway,
which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood fron
her face with the corner of ber shawl, while he went :>r»
ahead.

188 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when
I saw any of these people coming, I turned tack until I
could find a hiding-place, where I remained until they had
gone out of sight ; which happened so often, that I was very
seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as under all
the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained
and led on by my fanciful , picture of my mother in her
youth, before I came into the world. It always kept me
company. It was there, among the hops, when I lay down
to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the morning; it
went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since,
with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in
the hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and
gateways, and the stately, grey cathedral, with the rooks
sailing round the towers /hen I came, at last, upon the
bare, wide downs neaa' Do>^r, it relieved the solitary as-
pect of the scene >-rcn ho-^ ; and not until I reached that
first great aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the
town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did it desert me.
But then, strange to say, when I stood with my ragged
shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the
place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and
to leave me helpless and dispirited.

I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and
received various answers. One said she lived in the South
Foreland Light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so ;
another, that she was made fast to the great buoy outside
the harbour, and could only be visited at half -tide ; a third,
that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child-stealing ;
a fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom, in the last
high wind, and make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers,
among whom I inquired next, were equally jocose and
equally disrespectful ; and the shopkeepers, not liking my
appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had
to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more
miserable and destitute than I had done at any period of
my running away. My money was all gone, I had norhing
left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn out;
and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in
London.

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I
was sitting on the step of an empty shop at a street-corner,
pear the market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 189

those other places which had been mentioned, when a
fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth.
Something good-natured in the man's face, as I handed ifc
up, encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where
Miss Trotwood lived ; though I had asked the question so
often, that it almost died upon my lips

" Trotwood," said he. " Let me see 1 know the name,
too Old lady? »

"Yes," I said, "rather"

"Pretty stiff in the back?" said he, making himself
upright.

' Yes," I said. " I should think it very likely."

" Carries a bag ? " said he — " bag with a good deal of
room in it — is gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp? "

My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted
accuracy of this description.

"Why then, I tell you what," said he. "If you go up
there," pointing with his whip towards the heights, " and
keep right on till you come to some houses facing the sea,
I think you'll hear of her. My opinion is, she won't stand
anything, so here's a penny for you."

I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it.
Despatching this refreshment by the way, I went in the
direction my friend had indicated, and walked on a good
distance without coming to the houses he had mentioned.
At length I saw some before me ; and approaching them,
went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general
shop, at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness
to tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself
to a man behind the counter, who was weighing some rice
for a young woman ; but the latter, taking the inquiry to
herself, turned round quickly.

" My mistress? " she said " What do you want with her.
boy? "

" I want," I replied, "to speak to her, if you please."

" To beg of her, you mean," retorted the damsel.

"No," I said, "indeed." But suddenly remembering
that in truth I came for no other purpose, I held my peace
in confusion, and felt my face burn.

My aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what
she had said, put her rice in a little basket and walked out
of the shop ; telling me that I could follow her, if I wanted
to know where Miss Trotwood lived I needed no second

190 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

permission ; though I was by this time in such a state oi
consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me.
I followed the young woman, and we soon came to a very
neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows : in front of
it, a small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers,
carefully tended, and smelling deliciously.

"This is Miss Trotwood's," said the young woman.
" Now you know ; and that's all I have got to say." With
which words she hurried into the house, as if to shake off
the responsibilty of my appearance ; and left me standing
at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of it
towards the parlour-window, where a muslin curtain partly
undrawn in the middle, a large round green screen or fan
fastened on to the window-sill, a small table, and a great
chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be at that moment
seated in awful state.

My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The
soles had shed themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers
had broken and burst until the very shape and form of shoes
had departed from them. My hat (which had served me
for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old
battered handleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been
ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and trousers, stained
with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had
slept — and torn besides — might have frightened the birds
from my aunt's garden, as I stood at the gate. My hair
had known no comb or brush since I left London. My
face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the
air and sun, were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to
foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust,
as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and
with a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce
myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable
aunt.

The unbroken stillness of the parlour-window leading me
to infer, after a while, that she was not there, I lifted up
my eyes to the window above it, where I saw a florid,
pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, who shut
up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head a+ me
several times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and w« I
away.

I had been discomposed enough before; but I was -<
much the more discomposed by this unexpected behaviour.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 191

that I was on the point of slinking off, to think how I had
best proceed, when there came out of the house a lady with
a handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of "gardening
gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening-pocket like a
tollman's apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her
immediately to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking
out of the house exactly as my poor mother had so often
described her stalking up our garden at Blunderstone
Rookery.

" Go away i ? ' said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and
making a distant chop in the air with her knife. "Go
along ! No boys here ! n

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched
to a corner of her garden, and stooped to dig up some little
root there. Then, without a scrap of courage, but with a
great deal of desperation, I went softly in and stood beside
her, touching her with my finger.

" If you please, ma'am," I began

She started, and looked up.

" If you please, aunt."

" Eh? " exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement
I have never heard approached.

" If you please, aunt, I am your nephew."

" Oh, Lord ! " said my aunt. And sat flat down in the
garden-path.

" I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk —
where you came, on the night when I was born, and saw
m.j dear mama. I have been very unhappy since she died.
I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and thrown upon
myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run
away to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have
walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since I
began the journey." Here my self-support gave way all at
once , and with a movement of my hands, intended to show
her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had suffered
something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose
had been pent up within me all the week.

My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder dis-
charged from her countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at
me, until I began to cry; when she got up in a great hurry,
collared me, and took me into the parlour. Her first
proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several
bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my

192 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

mouth . I think they must have been taken out at random,
lor I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, an&
salad dressing. When she had administered these restora-
tives, as I was still quite hysterical, and unable to control
my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my
head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my
feet, lest I should sully the cover ; and then, sitting herself
down behind the green fan or screen I have alreaay men-
tioned, so that I could not see her face, ejaculated at inter-
vals, " Mercy on us ! " letting those exclamations off like
minute-guns.

After a time she rang the bell. " Janet," said my aunt,
when her servant came in. "Go up stairs, give my
compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish to speak to him."

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on
the sofa (I was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing
to my aunt) but went on her errand. My aunt, with her
hands behind her, walked up and down the room, until the
gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper window
came in laughing.

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "don't be a fool, because
nobody can be more discreet than you can, when you choose.
We all know that. So don't be a fool, whatever you are."

The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at
me, I thought, as if he would entreat me to say nothing
about the window.

" Mr. Dick," said my aunt, " you have heard me mention
David Copperfield? Now don't pretend not to have a
memory, because you and I know better."

" David Copperfield? " said Mr. Dick, who did not appear
to me to remember much about it. "David Copperfield?
Oh yes, to be sure. David, certainly."

"Well," said my aunt, "this is his boy — his son. He
would be as like his father as it's possible to be, if he was
not so like his mother, too."

"His son?" said Mr. Dick. "David's son? Indeed!"

"Yes," pursued my aunt, "and he has done a pretty
piece of business. He has run away. Ah! His sister,
Betsey Trotwood, never would have run away." My aunt
shook her head firmly, confident in the character and
behaviour of the girl who never was born.

"Oh! you think she wouldn't have run away?" said
Mr. Dick.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 193

"Bless and save the man," exclaimed my aunt, sharply,
" how he talks ! Don't I know she wouldn't? She would
have lived with her godmother, and we should have been
devoted to one another. Where, in the name of wonder,
should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to? "

" Nowhere," said Mr. Dick.

'• Well then," returned my aunt, softened by the reply,
"how can you pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when
you are as sharp as a surgeon's lancet? Now, here you see
young David Copperfield, and the question I put to you is,
what shall I do with him? "

"What shall you do with him?" said Mr. Dick, feebly,
scratching his head. " Oh! do with him? "

" Yes," said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger
held up. "Come! I want some very sound advice."

" Why, if I was you," said Mr. Dick, considering, and

looking vacantly at me, " I should " The contemplation

of me seemed to inspire him with a sudden idea, and he
added, briskly, " I should wash him ! "

"Janet," said my aunt, turning round with a quiet
triumph, which I did not then understand, " Mr. Dick sets
us all right. Heat the bath ! "

Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could
not help observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it
was in progress, and completing a survey I had already been
engaged in making of the room.

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means
ill-looking. There was an inflexibility in her face, in her
voice, in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account
for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my
mother ; but her features were rather handsome than other-
wise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed
that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which
was grey, was arranged in two plain divisions, under what
I believe would be called a mob-cap : I mean a cap, much
more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening
under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and
perfectly neat ; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as
little encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought
it, in form, more like a riding-habit with the superfluous
skirt cut oif, than anything else. She wore at her side a
gentleman's gold watch, if I might judge from its size and
make, with an appropriate chain and seals ; she had some

194 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at
her wrists like little shirt- wristbands.

Mr, Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed and
florid : I should have said all about him, in saying so, had
not his head been curiously bo wed — not by age; it reminded
me of one of Mr. Creakle's boys' heads after a beating — and
his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange kind c f
watery brightness in them that made me, in combination
with his vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his
childish delight when she praised him, suspect him of being
a little mad ; though, if he were mad, how he came to be
there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed like any other
ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning eoat and waist-
coat, and white trousers ; and had his watch in his fob, and
his money in his pockets : which he rattled as if he were
very proud of it.

Janet was a pretty, blooming girl, of about nineteen or
twenty, and a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made
no further observation of her at the moment, I may mention
here what I did not discover until afterwards, namely, that
she was one of a series of protegees whom my aunt had taken
into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement of
mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration
by marrying the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid
down my pen, a moment since, to think of it, the air from
the sea came blowing in again, mixed with the perfume of
the flowers ; and I saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly
rubbed and polished, my aunt's inviolable chair and table
by the round green fan in the bow-window, the drugget-
covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,
the old china, the punch-bowl full of dried rose-leaves, the
tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, won-
derfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon
the sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt,
fco my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indig-
nation, and had hardly voice to cry out, " Janet ! Donkeys ! "

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the
house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green
in front, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden,
that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt,
rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 105

laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth
from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the
unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane
that hallowed ground.

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful
right of way over that patch of green ; but she had settled
it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to
her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be
constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that
immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged,
however interesting to her the conversation in which she was
taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a
moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water,
and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready to be
discharged on the offending boys ; sticks were laid in ambush
behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and
incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable
excitement to the donkey-boys ; or perhaps the more saga-
cious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood,
delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way.
I only know that there were three alarms before the bath
was ready ; and that on the occasion of the last and most
desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with
a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head
against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what
was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridicu-
lous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table
spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I
was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first
in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet
open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the
basin, cry " Janet ! Donkeys ! " and go out to the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible
of acute paius in my limbs from lying out in the fie and
was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep ray^M
awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed, they
(I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a
pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in
two or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked
like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also
very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa again
and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy

196 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

which had occupied my mind so long, but I awoke with the
impression that my aunt had come and bent over me, and
had put my hair away from my face, and laid my head more
comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,
"Pretty fellow," or "Poor fellow," seemed to be in my ears,
too ; but certainly there was nothing else, when'l awoke, to
lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt,
who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind
the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and
turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a
pudding ; I sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself,
and moving my arms with considerable difficulty. But as
my auDt had swathed me up, I made no complaint of being
inconvenienced. All this time, I was deeply anxious to
know what she was going to do with me ; but she took her
dinner in profound silence, except when she occasionally
fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, "'Mercy
upon us ! " which did not by any means relieve my anx-
iety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the
table (of which I had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr.
Dick again, who joined us, and looked as wise as he could
when she requested him to attend to my story, which she
elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions.
During my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I
thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who,
whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown
from my aunt.

"Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that
she must go and be married again," said my aunt, when I
had finished, "/can't conceive."

" Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband," Mr.
Dick suggested.

" Fell in love ! " repeated my aunt. " What do you mean?
What business had she to do it? "

" Perhaps," Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little,
" she did it for pleasure."

" Pleasure, indeed ! " replied my aunt. " A mighty
pleasure for the poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any
dog of a fellow, certain to ill-use her in some way or other
What did she propose to herself, I should like to know!
She had had one husband. She had seen David Copperfield

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 197

out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls
from his cradle. She had got a baby — oh, there were a
pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here,
that Friday night! — and what more did she want? "

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought
there was no getting over this.

" She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else, ' said
my aunt. " Where was this child' s sister, Betsey Trotwood?
Not forthcoming. Don't tell me ! "

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

" That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,"
said my aunt, " Jellips, or whatever his name was, what
was he about? All he could do was to say to me, like a
robin redbreast — as he is — ' It's a boy.' A boy! Yah,
the imbecility of the whole set of 'em ! "

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick
exceedingly : and me, too, if I am to tell the truth.

" And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not
stood sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, Betsey
Trotwood," said my aunt, "she marries a second time —
goes and marries a Murderer — or a man with a name like
it — and stands in this child's light! And the natural
consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen,
that he prowls and wanders. He's as like Cain before he
was grown up, as he can be."

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this
character.

"And then there's that woman with the Pagan name,"
said my aunt, "that Peggotty, she goes and gets married
next. Because she has not seen enough of the evil attending
such things, she goes and gets married next, as the child
relates. I only hope," said my aunt, shaking her head,
"that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who
abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with one."

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and
made the subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that
indeed she was mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the
truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-deny-
ing friend and servant in the world ; who had ever loved me
dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly ; who had
held my mother's dying head upon her arm, on whose face
my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my
remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I

198 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all
she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for
shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear
that I might bring some trouble on her — I broke down, I
say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands
upon the table.

" Well, well ! " said my aunt, " the child is right to stand
by those who have stood by him. — Janet ! Donkeys ! "

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate
donkeys, we should have come to a good understanding •
for my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and the
impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and
beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the dis-
order she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an
end to all softer ideas for the present ; and kept my aunt
indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination
to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring
actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship
of Dover, until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window — on the look-out, as I
imagined, from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for
more invaders — until dusk, when Janet set candles, and a
backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the
blinds.

"Now, Mr. Dick," said my aunt, with her grave look,
and her forefinger up as before, " I am going to ask you
another question. Look at this child."

" David's son? " said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled
face.

"Exactly so," returned my aunt. "'What would you do
with him, now? "

"Do with David's son? " said Mr. Dick.

" Ay," replied my aunt, "with David's son."

"Oh! " said Mr. Dick. "Yes. Do with— I should put
him to bed."

" Janet ! " cried my aunt, with the same complacent
triumph that I had remarked before. "Mr. Dick sets us
all right. If the bed is ready, we'll take him up to it."

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to
it ; kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner ; my aunt going
in front, and Janet bringing up the rear. The only
circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt's
stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 199

was prevalent there ; and Janet's replying that she had been
making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But
there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap
of things I wore ; and when I was left there, with a little
taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly
five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside.
Turning these things over in my mind, I deemed it possible
that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect
I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on
that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house,
overlooking the sea, on which the zuoon was shining
brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle
had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the
moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune
in it, as in a bright book ; or to see my mother with her child,
coming from heaven, along that shining path, to look upon
me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I
remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I
turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude
and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed — and
how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in
the snow-white sheets! — inspired I remember how I
thought of all the solitary places under the night sky where
I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be house-
less any more, and never might forget the houseless. I
remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy
glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of
dreams.

CHAPTER XiV.

MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME.

On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing
so profoundly over the breakfast- table, with her elbow on
the tray, that the contents of the urn had overflowed the
teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth under water,
when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt
sure that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was
more, than ever anxious to know her intentions towards me.

200 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Yet I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should give her
offence.

My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my
tongue, were attracted towards my aunt very often during
breakfast. I never could look at her for a few moments
together but I found her looking at me — in an odd thoughtful
manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of being
on the other side of the small round table. When she had
finished her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back
in her chair, knitted her brows, folded her arms, ana
contemplated me at her leisure with such a fixedness of
attention that I was quite overpowered by embarrassment.
Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted
to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife
tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I
chipped bits of bacon a surprising height into the air instead
of cutting them for my own eating, and choked myself with
my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way instead of
the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing
under my aunt's close scrutiny.

"Hallo! " said my aunt, after a long time.

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully

" I have written to him," said my aunt.

"To ?"

"To your father-in-law," said my aunt. "I have sent
him a letter that I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I
will fall out, I can tell him ! "

" Does he know where I am, aunt? w I inquired, alarmed

"I have told him," said my aunt, with a nod.

"Shall I— be— given up tu him? " I faltered.

"I don't know," said my aunt. "We shall see."

"Oh! I can't think what I shall do," I exclaimed, "if 1
have to go back to Mr. Murd stone ! "

" I don't know anything about it," said my aunt, shaking
her head. " I can't say, I am sure. We shall see "

My spirits sank under these words, and I became very
downcast and heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing
to take much heed of me, put on a coarse apron with a bib,
which she took out of the press ; washed up the teacups with
her own hands ; and, when everything was washed and set
in the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top
of the whole, rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept
up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair of

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 201

gloves first), until there did not appear to be one microscopic
speck left on the carpet ; next dusted and arranged the room,
which was dusted and arranged to a hair's-breadth already.
When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she
took or! the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in
the particular corner of the press from which they had been
taken, brought out her work-box to her own table in the
open window, and sat down, with the green fan between
her and the light, to work.

" I wish you'd go up-stairs," said my aunt, as she threaded
her needle, " and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I'll
be glad to know how he gets on with his Memorial."

I rose with all alacrity,to acquit myself of this commission.

"I suppose/' said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she
had eyed her needle in threading it, " you think Mr. Dick a
short name, eh? "

"I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday," I
confessed.

" You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name,
if he chose to use it," said my aunt, with a loftier air.
" Babley — Mr. Eichard Babley — that's the gentleman's true
name."

I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth
and the familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had
better give him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt
went on to say :

" But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He
can't bear his name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though
I don't know that it's much of a peculiarity, either; for he
has been ill-used enough, by some that bear it, to have a
mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his
name here, and everywhere else, now — if he ever went
•anywhere else, which he don't. So take care, child, you
don't call him anything but Mr. Dick."

I promised to obey, and went up-stairs with my message ;
thinking, as I went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at
his Memorial long, at the same rate as I had seen him
working at it, through the open door, when I came down,
he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him
still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid
upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample
leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the
•confusion of bundles of nianusorint. the number of pens,

202 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to
have in, in half -gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed
my being present.

" Ha ! Phoebus ! " said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen
"How does the world go? I'll tell you what," he added,
in a lower tone, " I shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but
it's a — " here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to
my ear — "it's a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy! " said
Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and
laughing heartily.

Without presuming to give my opinion on this question,
I delivered my message.

"Well," said Mr. Dick, in answer, "my compliments
to her, and I — I believe I have made a start. I think I
have made a start," said Mr. Dick, passing his hand among
his grey hair, and casting anything but a confident look at
his manuscript. " You have been to school? "

"Yes, Sir," I answered; "for a short time."

"Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking
earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down,
" when King Charles the First had his head cut off ? "

I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred
and forty-nine.

"Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with hia
pen, and looking dubiously at me. " So the books say ; but
I don't see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago,
how could the people about him have made that mistake of
putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was
taken off, into mine ? "

I was very much surprised by the inquiry ; but could give
no information on this point.

"It's very strange," said Mr. Dick, with a despondent
look upon his papers, and with his hand among his hair
again, " that I never can get that quite right. I never car
make that perfectly clear. But no matter, no matter ! " he
said cheerfully, and rousing himself, "there's time enough!
My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very-
well indeed."

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the
kite.

"What do you think of that for a kite? " he said.

I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think
it must have been as much as seven feet high.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 203

"I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I/' said Mr.
Dick "Do you see this? "

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very
closely and laboriously written ; but so plainly, that as I
looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to
King Charles the First's head again, in one or two places.

" There's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, " and when it
lies high, it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner
>f diffusing 'em. I don't know where they may come down.
It's according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth:
hut I take my chance of that."

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had some-
thing so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that
I was not sure but that he was having a good-humoured jes;
with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the
best friends possible.

"Well, child," said my aunt, when I went down stairs.
" And what of Mr. Dick, this morning? "

I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was
getting on very well indeed.

" What do you think of him? " said my aunt.

I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the
question, by replying that I thought him a very nice gentle-
man ; but my aunt was not to be so put off, for she laid her
work down in her lap, and said, folding her hands upon it :

" Come ! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told
me what she thought of anyone, directly. Be as like your
sister as you can, and speak out ! "

" Is he — is Mr. Dick — I ask because I don't know, aunt —
is he at all out of his mind, then? " I stammered; for I felt
[ was on dangerous ground.

"Xot a morsel," said my aunt.

" Oh, indeed ! " I observed faintly.

1 If there is anything in the world," said my aunt, with
great decision and force of manner, "that Mr. Dick is not,
it's that."

I had nothing better to offer, than another timid " Oh,
indeed ! "

"He has been called mad," said my aunt. "I have a
selfish pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or I
should not have had the benefit of his society and advice
for these last ten years and upwards — in fact, ever since
your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me."

204 PERSONAL HISTORx AND EXPERIENCE

" So long as that? " I said.

" And nice people they were, who had the audacity tc
call him mad," pursued my aunt. "Mr. Dick is a sort of
distant connexion of mine ; it doesn't matter how ; I needn't
enter into that. If it hadn't been for me, his own brother
would have shut him up for life. That's all."

I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my
aunt felt strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt
strongly too.

" A proud fool ! " said my aunt. " Because his brother
was a little eccentric — though he is not half so eccentric as
a good many people — he didn't like to have him visible
about his house, and sent him away to some private asylum-
place : though he had been left to his particular care by their
deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And
a wise man he must have been to think so ! Mad himself,
no doubt."

Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured
to look quite convinced also.

" So I stepped in," said my aunt, " and made him an offer.
I said, ' Your brother's sane — a great deal more sane than
you are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. Let him have
his little income, and come and live with me. /am not
afraid of him, i" am not proud, I am ready to take care of
him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the
asylum-folks) have done.' After a good deal of squab-
bling," said my aunt, "I got him; and he has been here
ever since. He is the most friendly and amenable creature
in existence; and as for advice! — But nobody knows what
that man's mind is, except myself."

My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if
she smoothed defiance of the whole world out of the one,
and shook it out of the other.

"He had a favourite sister," said my aunt, "a good crea-
ture, and very kind to him. But she did what they all do
— took a husband. And he did what they all do — made her
wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick
(that's not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear
of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw
him into a fever. That was before he came to me, but the
recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did he
say anything to you about King Oha.rles the First, child? n

"Yes, aunt."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 205

" Ah ! " said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a
little vexed. "That's his allegorical way of expressing it.
He connects his illness with great disturbance and agitation,
naturally, and that's the figure, or the simile, or whatever
it's called, which he chooses to use. And why shouldn't he,
if he thinks proper? "

I said: "Certainly, aunt."

" It's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt,
"nor a worldly way. I am aware of that; and that's the
reason why I insist upon it, that there shan't be a word
about it in his Memorial."

" Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writ-
ing, aunt? "

"Yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again.
"He is memorialising the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord
Somebody or other — one of those people, at all events, who
are paid to be memorialised — about his affairs. I suppose
it will go in, one of these days. He hasn't been able to
draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing
himself; but it don't signify; it keeps him employed."

In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been
for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles
the First out of the Memorial ; but he had been constantly
getting into it, and was there now.

"I say again," said my aunt, "nobody knows what that
man's mind is except myself; and he's the most amenable
and friendly creature in existence. If he likes to fly a kite
sometimes, what of that? Franklin used to fly a kite.
He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I am not
mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more
ridiculous object than anybody else."

If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted
these particulars for my especial behoof, and as a piece of
confidence in me, I should have felt very much distin-
guished, and should have augured favourably from such a
mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observ-
ing that she had launched into them, chiefly because the
question was raised in her own mind, and with very little
reference to me, though she had addressed herself to me in
the absence of anybody else.

At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her
championship of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired
my young breast with some selfish hope for myself, but

206 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

warmed it unselfishly towards her. I believe that I began
to know that there was something about my aunt, notwith-
standing her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be
honoured and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp
that day, as on the day before, and was in and out about
the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into a tremendous
state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled
Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misde-
meanours that could be committed against my aunt's
dignity), she seemed to me to command more of nci> respect*
if not less of my fear.

The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily
Biapsed before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr.
Murdstone, was extreme ; but I made an endeavour to sup-
press it, and to be as agreeable as I could in a quiet way,
both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and I would
have gone out to fly the great kite ; but that I had still no
other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments
with which I had been decorated en the first day, and which
confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark,
when my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up and
down on the cliff outside before going to bed. At length
the reply from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed
me, to my infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to
her himself on the next day. On the next day, still bundled
up in my curious habiliments, I sat counting the time,
flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and ris-
ing fears within me ; and waiting to be startled by the sight
of the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every
minute.

My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual,
but I observed no other token of her preparing herself to
receive the visitor so much dreaded by me. She sat at work
in the window, and I sat by, with my thoughts running
astray on all possible and impossible results of Mr Murd-
stone's visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. Our dinner
nad been indefinitely postponed ; but it was growing so late>
that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready, when she ga^ve
a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation and
amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride
deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front
of the house, looking about her.

"Go along with you.' * oried my auntx shaking her head

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 20?

and her fist at the window. " You have no business there.
How dare you trespass? Go along! Oh! you bold-faced
thing!"

My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which
Miss Murdstone looked about her, that I really believe she
was motionless, and unable for the moment to dart out
according to custom. ~I seized the opportunity to inform
her who it was ; and that the gentleman now coming neai
the offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had
dropped behind) was Mr. Murdstone himself.

" I don't care who it is ! " cried my aunt, still shaking her
head, and gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-
window. "I won't be trespassed upon. I won't allow it.
Go away! Janet, turn him round. Lead him off! " and I
saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried battle-piece, in
which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all his
four legs planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull
him round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him
on, Miss Murdstone struck at Janet with a parasol, and
several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted
vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them
the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and
who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her,
though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of action,
pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his
jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the ground, into
the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the constables
and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and executed on
the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the business,
however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being
expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which my aunt
had no conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some
deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and
taking his donkey in triumph with him.

Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest,
had dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at
the bottom of the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure
to receive them My aunt, a little ruffled by the combat,
marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and
took no notice of their presence, until they were announced
by Janet.

" Shall I go away, aunt? " I asked, trembling.

"No* Sir," said mv aunt. u Certainly not1" Wjtb

208 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

which she pushed me into a corner near her, and fenr 3
in with a chair, as if it were a prison or a bar of justice.
This position I Continued to occupy during the whole inter-
view, and from it I now saw Mr, and Miss Murdstone enter
the room.

" Oh ! " said my aunt, " I was not aware at first to whom
I had the pleasure of objecting. Butrl don't allow anybody
to ride over that turf. I make no exceptions. I don't
allow anybody to do it."

" Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers," said
Miss Murdstone

" Is it ! " said my aunt.

Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities,
and interposing began :

"MissTrotwood!"

" I beg your pardon," observed my aunt with a keen look.
"You are the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of
my late nephew, David Copperfield, of Blunderstone
Rookery? — Though why Rookery, /don't know! "

"I am," said Mr. Murdstone.

"You'll excuse my saying, Sir," returned my aunt, "that
I think it would have been a much better and happier thing
if you had left that poor child alone."

" I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,"
observed Miss Murdstone, bridling, "that I consider our
lamented Clara to have been, in all essential respects, a
mere child."

"It is a comfort to you and me, ma'am," said my aunt,
"who are getting on in life, and are not likely to be made
unhappy by our personal attractions, that nobody can say
the same of us."

" No doubt ! " returned Miss Murdstone, though, I
thought, not with a very ready or gracious assent. " And
it certainly might have been, as you say, a better and hap-
pier thing for my brother if he had never entered into such
a marriage. I have always been of that opinion."

"I have no doubt you have," said my aunt. "Janet,"
ringing the bell, " my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg
him to come down."

Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff,
frowning at the wall. When he came, my aunt performed
the fprpuiony of introduction.

''"Mr Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 209

judgment/' said my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition
to Mr. Dick, who was biting his forefinger and looking
rather foolish, "I rely."

Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint,
and stood among the group, with a grave and attentive
expression of face. My aunt inclined her head to Mr.
Murdstone, who went on :

" Miss Trotwood. On the receipt of your letter, I con-
sidered it an act of greater justice to myself, and perhaps
of more respect to you w

"Thank you," said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly
' You needn't mind me."

" To answer it in person, however inconvenient the jour-
ney," pursued Mr. Murdstone, "rather than by letter.
This unhappy boy who has run away from his friends and
his occupation "

"And whose appearance," interposed his sister, directing
general attention to me in my indefinable costume, "is
perfectly scandalous and disgraceful."

"Jane Murdstone," said her brother, "have the goodness
not to interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood,
has been the occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasi-
ness ; both during the lifetime of my late dear wife, and
since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit ; a violent temper ;
and an untoward, intractable disposition. Both my sister
and myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but
ineffectually. And I have felt — we both have felt, I may
say; my sister being fully in my confidence — that it is
right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assur-
ance from our lips."

" It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything
stated by my brother," said Miss Murdstone; "but I beg
to observe, that, of all the boys in the world, I believe this
is the worst boy."

" Strong ! " said my aunt, shortly.

"But not at all too strong for the facts," returned Miss
Murdstone.

" Ha ! " said my aunt. " Well, Sir? "

"T have my own opinions," resumed Mr. Murdstone,
whose tace darkened more and more, the more he and my
aunt observed each other, which they did very narrowly,
" as to the best mode of bringing him up ; they are founded,
in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowl-
14

210 ' PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

edge of my own means and resources. I am responsible foi
them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no mere about
them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of
a friend of my own, in a respectable business ; that it does
not please him ; that he rnns away from it ; makes himself
a common vagabond about the country ; and comes here,
in rags, to appeal to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set
before yon, honourably, the exact consequences— so far as
they are within my knowledge — of your abetting him in this
appeal."

" But aoout the respectable business first," said my aunt.
" If he had been your own boy, you would have put him to
it, just the same, I suppose? "

" If he had been my brother's own boy," returned Miss
Murdstone, striking in, " his character, I trust, would have
been altogether different."

" Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would
still have gone into the respectable business, would he? "
said my aunt.

" I believe," said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of
his head, " that Clara would have disputed nothing, which
myself and my sister Jane Murdstone were agreed was for
the best."

Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible mur-
mur.

" Humph ! " said my aunt. " Unfortunate baby ! "

Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time,
was rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary
to check him with a look, before saying :

" The poor child's annuity died with her? "

"Died with her," replied Mr. Murdstone.

" And there was no settlement of the little property — the
house and garden — the what's-its-name Rookery without
any rooks in it — upon her boy? "

"It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first
husband," Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him
up with the greatest irascibility and impatience.

" Good Lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. Left
to her unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield
looking forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though
it stared him point-blank in the face ! Of course it was left
to her unconditionally. But when she married again — when
she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in short,"

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 211

said my aunt, "to be plain — did no one pnt in a word for
the boy at that time? "

•■ My late wife loved her second husband, madam," said
Mr. Murdstone, "and trusted implicitly in him."

'• Your late wife, Sir, was a most unworldly, most un-
happy, most unfortunate baby," returned my aunt, shaking
her head at him. " That's what she was. And now, what
have you got to say next? "

•• Merely this, Miss Trotwood," he returned. " I am here
to take David back ; to take him back unconditionally, to
dispose of him as I think proper, and to deal with him as
I think right. I am not here to make any promise, or give
any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some idea,
Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and
in his complaints to you. l^our manner, which I must say
does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think
it possible. Xow I must caution you that if you abet him
once, you abet him for good and all; if you step in between
him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for
ever. I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for
the first and last time, to take him away. Is he ready to
go? If he is not — and you tell me he is not; on any pre-
tence; it is indifferent to me what — my doors are shut
against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted,
are open to him."

To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest
attention, sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded
on one knee, and looking grimly on the speaker. When he
had finished, she turned her eyes so as to command Miss
Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and
said:

" Well, ma'am, have you got anything to remark? "

"Indeed, Miss Trotwood," said Miss Murdstone, "all
that I could say has been so well said by my brother, and
all that I know to be the fact has been so plainly stated
by him, that I have nothing to add except my thanks for
your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am
sure/' said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more
affected my aunt than it discomposed the cannon I had
slept by at Chatham.

" And what does the boy say? " said my aunt. " Are
you ready to go, David? "

I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I

212 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

said that neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked
me, or had ever been kind to me. That they had made my
mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about me,
and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I
said that I had been more miserable than I thought anybody
could believe who only knew how young I was. And I
begged and prayed my aunt — I forget in what terms now,
but I remember that they affected me very much then — to
befriend and protect me, for my father's sake.

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt; "what shall I do with this
child? "

Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined,
"Have him measured for a suit of clothes directly."

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt triumphantly, "give me your
hand, for your common sense is invaluable." Having
shaken it with great cordiality, she pulled me towards her
and said to Mr. Murdstone :

" You can go when you like ; I'll take my chance with
the boy. If he's all you say he is, at least I can do as
much for him then, as you have done. But I don't believe
a word of it. "

"Miss Trotwood," rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging
his shoulders, as he rose, " if you were a gentleman "

"Bah! Stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt. "Don't
talk to me ! "

" How exquisitely polite ! " exclaimed Miss Murdstone,
rising. " Overpowering, really ! "

"Do you think I don't know," said my aunt, turning a
deaf ear to the sister, and continuing to address the brother,
and to shake her head at him with infinite expression,
" what kind of life you must have led that poor, unhappy,
misdirected baby? Do you think I don't know what a
woeful day it was for the soft little creature when you first
came in her way — smirking and making great eyes at her,
I'll be bound, as if you couldn't say boh ! to a goose ! "

" I never heard anything so elegant ! " said Miss Murd-
stone.

"Do you think I can't understand you as well as if I had
seen you," pursued my aunt, "now that I do see and hear
you — which I tell you candidly, is anything but a pleasure
to me? Oh yes, bless us ! who so smooth and silky as Mr.
Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent had
never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 213

worshipped her. He doted on her boy — tenderly doted on
him. He was to be another father to him, and they were
all to live together in a garden of roses, weren't they?
Ugh ! Get along with yon, do ! " said my aunt.

" I never heard anything like this person in my life ! "
exclaimed Miss Murdstone.

" And when you had made sure of the poor little fool, "
said my aunt — " God forgive me that I should call her so,
and she gone where you won't go in a hurry — because you
had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you must begin
to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor caged
bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to
sing your notes? "

" This is either insanity or intoxication," said Miss Murd-
stone, in a perfect agony at not being able to turn the
current of my aunt's address towards herself; "and my
suspicion is that it's intoxication."

Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the inter-
ruption, continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as
if there had been no such thing.

"Mr. Murdstone," she said, shaking her finger at him,
" you were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her
heart. She was a loving baby — I know that ; I knew it,
years before you ever saw her — and through the best part
of her weakness, you gave her the wounds she died of.
There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it.
And you and your instruments may make the most of it."

"Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood," interposed Miss
Murdstone, "whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of
words in which I am not experienced, my brother's instru-
ments? "

Still stone-deaf to the voice, and utterly unmoved by it,
Miss Betsey pursued her discourse.

" It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before
you ever saw her — and why, in the mysterious dispensations
of Providence, you ever did see her, is more than humanity
can comprehend — it was clear enough that the poor soft
little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other ;
but I did hope it wouldn't have been as bad as it has turned
out. That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave
birth to her boy here," said my aunt; "to the poor child
you sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which is
a disagreeable remembrance, and makes the sight of him

214 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

odious now. Ay, ay! you needn't wince! " said my aunt
" I know it's true without that."

He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of
her, with a smile upon his face, though his black eyebrows
were heavily contracted. I remarked now, that, though the
smile was on his face still, his colour had gone in a moment,
and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running.

"Good day, Sir," said my aunt, "and good-bye. Good
day to you too, ma'am," said my aunt, turning suddenly
upon his sister. " Let me see you ride a donkey over my
green again, and as sure as you have a head upon youi
shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon
it!"

It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to
depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very
unexpected sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she
heard it. But the manner of the speech, no less than the
matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word
in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's,
and walked haughtily out of the cottage ; my aunt remaining
in the window looking after them; prepared, I have no
doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her
threat into instant execution.

No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face
gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that I was
emboldened to kiss and thank her ; which I did with great
heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round her neck.
I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with
me a great many times, and hailed this happy close of the
proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter.

"You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of
this child, Mr. Dick," said my aunt.

" I shall be delighted," said Mr. Dick, " to be the guardian
of David's son."

"Very good," returned my aunt, "that's settled. I have
been thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call
him Trotwood? "

"Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,"
said Mr. Dick. "David's son's Trotwood."

"Trotwood Copperfield, you mean," returned my aunt.

"Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield," said
Mr. Dick, a little abashed.

My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 215

made clothes, which were purchased for me that afternoon,
were marked "Trotwood Copperfield," in her own hand-
writing, and in indelible marking-ink, before I put them
on ; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were
ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke
that afternoon) should be marked in the same way.

Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with
every thing new about me. Now that the state of doubt
was over, I felt, for many days, like one in a dream. I
never thought that I had a curious couple of guardians, in
my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about
myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind
were, that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone
life — which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable
distance ; and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life
at Murdstone and Grinby's. No one has ever raised that
curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this
narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly.
The remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain
to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope,
that I have never had the courage even to examine how long
I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or
more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and
ceased to be ; and that I have written, and there I leave
it.

CHAPTER XV.

I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING.

Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very
often, when his day's work was done, went out together to
fly the great kite. Every day of his life he had a long
sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least pro-
gress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First
always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was
thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and
hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments,
the mild perception he had that there was something wrong
about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to
keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and
tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impres-

216 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

sion upon me. What Mr. Dick supposed would conie ot
the Memorial, if it were completed ; where he thought it
was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no
more than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all neces-
sary that he should trouble himself with such questions, for
if anything were certain under the sun, it was certain that
the Memorial never would be finished.

It was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see
him with the kite when it was up a great height in the air.
What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its
disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were noth-
ing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been
a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out,
looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug
at his hands. He never looked so serene as he did then.
I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an evening, on a green
slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air,
that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such
was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the
string in, and it came lower and lower down out of the
beautiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there
like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a
dream ; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and
look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come
down together, so that I pitied him with all my heart.

While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr.
Dick, I did not go backward in the favour of his staunch
friend, m^ aunt. She took so kindly to me, that, in the
course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted name of
Trotwood into Trot ; and even encouraged me to hope that
if I went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her
affections with my sister Betsey Trotwood.

"Trot," said my aunt one evening, when the backgam-
mon-board was placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick,
"we must not forget your education."

This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite
delighted by her referring to it.

" Should you like to go to school at Canterbury? " said
my aunt.

I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so
near her.

"Good," aaid my aunt. 'Should you like to go to-
morrow? *

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 217

Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my
aunfs evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of
the proposal, and said: "Yes."

"Good," said my aunt again. "Janet, hire the grey
pony and chaise to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, aad
pack up Master Trotwood's clothes to-night."

I was greatly elated by these orders ; but my heart smote
me for my selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr.
Dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separ-
ation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after
giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with
her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with
him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should
sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could some-
times come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived; and
vowed to make another kite for those occasions, of propor-
tions greatly surpassing the present one. In the morning
he was down-hearted again, and would have sustained him-
self by giving me all the money he had in his possession,
gold and silver too, if my aunt had not interposed, and
limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest peti-
tion, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the
garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick
did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out
of sight of it.

My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion,
drove the grey pony through Dover in a masterly manner ;
sitting high and stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady
eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of not
letting him have his own way in any respect. "When we
came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a
little, however; and looking at me down in a valley of
cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy?

"•Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt," I said.

She was much gratified ; and both her hands being occu-
pied, patted me on the head with her whip.

"Is it a large school, aunt? " I asked.

" Why, I don't know," said my aunt. " We are going to
Mr. WiekfWkVs first."

"Does he keep a school? " I asked.

"Xo, Trot," said my aunt. "He keeps an office."

I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as
she offered none, and we conversed on other subjects until

218 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

we came to Canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my
aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony
among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods.
The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down
upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing
about, which were not always complimentary ; but my aunt
drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would
have taken her own way with as much coolness through an
enemy's country.

At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out
over the road ; a house with long low lattice-windows bulg-
ing out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the
ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was
leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow
pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness.
The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door,
ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers,
twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps descending to the
door were as white as if they had been covered with fair
linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and
mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter
little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as
any snow that ever fell upon the hills.

When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes
were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear
at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round
tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly dis-
appear. The low arched door then opened, and the face
came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in
the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge
of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-
haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person — a youth
of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older — whose
hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble ; who had
hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a
red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember
wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered
and bony ; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a
neckcloth ; buttoned up to the throat ; and had a long, lank,
skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention,
as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it.
ind looking up at us in the chaise.

" Is Mr. Wickfleld at home, Uriah Heep? " said my aunt

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 219

"Mr. Wickfield' s at home, ma'am," said Uriah Heep, "if
you'll please to walk in there—" pointing with his long
hand to the room he meant.

We got out ; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into
a long low parlour looking towards the street, from the
window of which I caught a glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah
Heep breathing into the pony's nostrils, and immediately
covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some
spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece,
were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair
(though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows,
who was looking over some papers tied together with red
tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet
expression of face, who was looking at me.

I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah's picture,
when, a door at the farther end of the room opening, a
gentleman entered, at sight of whom I turned to the first-
mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had not
come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the
gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some
years older than when he had h#d his picture pamted.

"Miss Betsey Trotwood," said the gentleman, ' pray
walk in. I was engaged for a moment, but you'll excuse
my being busy. You know my motive. I have but one in

life."

Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room,
which was furnished as an office, with books, papers, tm
boxes, and so forth. It looked into a garden, and had an
iron safe let into the wall ; so immediately over the mantel-
shelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got
round it when they swept the chimney.

" Well, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon
found that it was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward
of the estates of a rich gentleman of the county; what
wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I hope? '

"No " replied my aunt, " I have not come for any law.

" That's right, ma'am," said Mr. Wickfield. " You had
better come for anything else."

His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were
still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought,
was handsome. There was a certain richness in his com-
plexion, which I had been long accustomed, under Peg-
gotty's tuition, to connect with port wine ; and I fancied *

220 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency
to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue
coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trousers ; and his fine
frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft
and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of
the plumage on the breast of a swan.

"This is my nephew," said my aunt.

"Wasn't aware you had one, Miss Trotwood," said Mr.
Wickfield.

"My grand-nephew, that is to say," observed my aunt,

"Wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my
word," said Mr. Wickfield.

" I have adopted him," said my aunt, with a wave of her
hand, importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were
all one to her, " and I have brought him here, to put him to
a school where he may be thoroughly well taught, and well
treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it is,
and all about it."

"Before I can advise you properly," said Mr. Wickfield,
— "the old question, you know. What's your motive in
this? "

" Deuce take the man ! " exclaimed my aunt. " Always
fishing for motives, when they're on the surface! Why, to
make the child happy and useful."

"It must be a mixed motive, I think," said Mr. Wick-
field, shaking his head and smiling incredulously.

" A mixed fiddlestick ! " returned my aunt. " You claim
to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don't
suppose, I hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the
world? "

" Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,"
he rejoined, smiling. " Other people have dozens, scores,
hundreds. I have only one. There's the difference.
However, that's beside the question. The best school?
Whatever the motive, you want the best ? "

My aunt nodded assent.

"At the best we have," said Mr. Wickfield, considering,
"your nephew couldn't board just now."

" But he could board somewhere else, I suppose? " sug-
gested my aunt.

Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion,
he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might
see it and judge for herself: also, to take her, with the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 221

same object, to two or three houses where he thought I
could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we
were all three going out together, when he stopped and said:

" Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps,
for objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better
leave him behind? "

My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point ; but to
facilitate matters I said I would gladly remain behind, if
they pleased; and returned into Mr. Wickfield's office,
where I sat down again, in the chair- 1 had first occupied>
to await their return.

It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow pas-
sage, which ended in the little circular room where I had
seen Uriah Heep's pale face looking out of window. Uriah,
having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work
at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top
to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was
making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was
towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being
between us, that he could not see me ; but looking that way
more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that,
every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below
the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me
for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his
pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. I made
several attempts to get out of their way — such as standing
on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room,
and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper — but
they always attracted me back again ; and whenever I looked
towards those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either
just rising, or just setting.

At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield
came back, after a pretty long absence. They were not
so successful as I could have wished ; for though the ad-
vantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had
not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed
for me.

"It's very unfortunate," said my aunt. "I don't know
what to do, Trot."

"It does happen unfortunately," said Mr. Wickf4d.
"But I'll tell you what you can do, Miss Trotwood."

" What's that? " inquired my aunt.

" Leave your nephew here, for the present. He's a quiei

222 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

fellow. He won't disturb me at all. It's a capital house
for study. As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy.
Leave him here."

My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate
of accepting it. So did I.

" Come, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield. " This is
the way out of the difficulty. It's only a temporary
arrangement, you know. If it don't act well, or don't
quite accord with our mutual convenience, he can easily go
to the right-about. There will be time to find some better
place for him in the meanwhile. You had better deter-
mine to leave him here for the present ! "

"I am very much obliged to. you," said my aunt; "and
so is he, I see ; but "

" Come ! I know what you mean, " cried Mr. Wickfield.
" You shall not be oppressed by the receipt of favours, Miss
Trotwood. You may pay for him, if you like. We won't
be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you will."

"On that understanding," said my aunt, "though it
doesn't lessen the real obligation, I shall be very glad to
leave him."

"Then come and see my little housekeeper," said Mr.
Wickfield.

We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase ; with
a balustrade so broad that we might have gone up that,
almost as easily; and into a shady old drawing-room,
lighted by some three or four of the quaint windows I had
looked up at from the street : which had old oak seats in
them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the
shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It
was a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively
furniture in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed
to be all old nooks and corners ; and in every nook and
corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or
bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me
think there was not such another good corner in the room ;
until I looked at the next one, and found it equal to it, if
not better. On everything there was the same air of retire-
ment and cleanliness that marked the house outside.

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled
wall, and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and
kissed him. On her face, I saw immediately the placid and
sweet expression of the lady whose picture had looked at

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 223

me down-stairs. It seemed to my imagination as it the
portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a
child. Although her face was quite bright and happy,
there was a tranquillity about it, and about her — a quiet,
good, calm spirit — that I never have forgotten ; that I
never shall forget.

This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr.
Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and saw how he
held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was.

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with
keys in it; and looked as staid and as discreet a house-
keeper as the old house could have. She listened to her
father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face ; and
when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we
should go up-stairs and see my room. We all went
together, she before us: and a glorious old room it was,
with more oak beams, and diamond panes ; and the broad
balustrade going all the way up to it.

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I
had seen a stained-glass window in a church. Nor do I
recollect its subject. But I know that when I saw her
turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait
for us, above, I thought of that window ; and that I asso-
ilzied something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes
Wickfield ever afterwards.

My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement
made for me; and we went down to the drawing-room
again, well pleased and gratified. As she would not hear
of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail to
arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as I
apprehended Mr. Wickfield knew her too well, to argue any
point with her ; some lunch was provided for her there, and
Agnes went back to her governess, and Mr. Wickfield to his
office. So we were left to take leave of one another with-
out any restraint.

She told me that everything would be arranged for me
by Mr. Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and
gave me the kindest words and the best advice.

" Trot," said my aunt in conclusion, " be a credit to your-
self, to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you ! n

I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again
and again, and send my love to Mr. Dick.

"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never

224 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

be false ; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot,
and I can always be hopeful of you."

I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse
her kindness or forget her admonition.

"The pony's at the door," said my aunt, "and I am off !
Stay here."

With these words she embraced me hastily, and went out
of the room, shutting the door after her. As first I was
startled by so abrupt a departure, and almost feared I had
displeased her ; but when I looked into the street, and saw
how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away
without looking up. I understood her better, and did not
do her that injustice.

By five o'clock, which was Mr. Wickfleld's dinner-hour,
I had mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my
knife and fork. The cloth was only laid for us two; but
Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, went
down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I
doubted whether he could have dined without her.

We did not stay there, after dinner, but came up-stairs
into the drawing-room again : in one snug corner of which,
Agnes set glasses for her father, and a decanter of port
wine. I thought he would have missed its usual flavour,
if it had been put there for him by any other hands.

There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of
it, for two hours ; while Agnes played on the piano, worked,
and talked to him and me. He was, for the most part, gay
and cheerful with us ; but sometimes his eyes rested on her,
and he fell into a brooding state, and was silent. She
always observed this quickly, as I thought, and always
roused him with a question or caress. Then he came out
of his meditation, and drank more wine.

Agnes made the tea, and presided over it ; and the time
passed away after it, as after dinner, until she went to bed ;
when her father took her in his arms and kissed her, and,
she being gone, ordered candles in his office. Then I went
to bed too.

But in the course of the evening I had rambled down do
the door, and a little way along the street, that I might
have another peep at the old houses, and the grey Cathe-
dral ; and might think of my coming through that old city
on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived
in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 225

Heep shutting up the office ; and, feeling friendly towards
everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave
him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was ! as
ghostly to the touch as to the sight ! I rubbed mine after-
wards, to warm it, and to rub his off.

It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went
to my room, it was still cold and wet upon my memory.
Leaning out of window, and seeing one of the faces on the
beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it was Uriah
Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry.

CHAPTEE XVI.

I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE.

Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life
again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the
scene of my future studies — a grave building in a court-
yard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well
suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down
from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing
on the grass-plot — and was introduced to my new master,
Doctor Strong.

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as
the tall iron rails and gates outside the house ; and almost
as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them,
and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular
distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for
Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor
Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed,
and his hair not particularly well combed ; his knee-smalls
unbraced ; his long black gaiters unbuttoned ; and his shoes
yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon
me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten
blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble
over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was
glad to see me : and then he gave me his hand ; which I
didn't know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself.

But, sitting at work, not far off from Doctor Strong, was
a very pretty young lady — whom he called Annie, and who
was his daughter^ I supposed — who got me out of my dim-

226 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

culty by kneeling down to put Doctor Strong's shoes on*
and button bis gaiters, which she did with great cheerful-
ness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were
going out to the schoolroom, I was much surprised to hear
Mr. Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her
as "Mrs. Strong;" and I was wondering could she be
Doctor Strong's son's wife, or could she be Mrs. Doctor
Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlight-
ened me.

" By the bye, Wickfield," he said, stopping in a passage
with his hand on my shoulder ; " you have not found any
suitable provision for my wife's cousin yet? "

"No," said Mr. Wickfield. "No. Not yet."

" I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wick-
field," said Doctor Strong, "for Jack Maldon is needy, and
idle ; and of those two bad things, worse things sometimes
come. What does Doctor Watts say," he added, looking
at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation,
"' Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.' "

"Egad, Doctor," returned Mr. Wickfield, "if Doctor
Watts knew mankind, he might have written, with as much
truth, ' Satan finds some mischief still, for busy hands to
do.' The busy people achieve their full share of mischief
in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people
been about, who have been the busiest in getting money,
and in getting power, this century or two? No mischief? "

" Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either,
1 expect," said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Perhaps not," said Mr. Wickfield; "and you bring me
back to the question, with an apology for digressing. No,
I have not been able to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet.
I believe," he said this with some hesitation, "I penetrate
your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult."

"My motive," returned Doctor Strong, " is to make some
suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of
Annie's."

" Yes, I know," said Mr. Wickfield, " at home or abroad. "

" Ay ! " replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he
emphasised those words so much. "At home or abroad."

"Your own expression, you know," said Mr. Wickfield.
"Or abroad."

"Surely," the Doctor answered. "Surely. One or
other."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 227

" One or other? Have you no choice? w asked Mr. Wick-
field.

"No," returned the Doctor.

"No?" with astonishment.

"Not the least."

"No motive," said Mr. Wickfield, "for meaning abroad,
and not at home? "

"No," returned the Doctor.

" I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe
you," said Mr. Wickfield. "It might have simplified my
office very much, if I had known it before. But I confess
I entertained another impression. "

Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting
look, which almost immediately subsided into a smile that
gave me great encouragement ; for it was full of amiability
and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed
in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost
upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful to a
young scholar like me. Repeating "no," and "not the
least," and other short assurances to the same purport,
Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace ;
and we followed; Mr. Wickfield looking grave, I observed,
and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I
saw him.

The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest
side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some
half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an
old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the
peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There
were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the win-
dows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if
they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by associ-
ation, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement.
About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at
their books when we went in, but they rose to give the
Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they
saw Mr. Wickfield and me.

" A new boy, young gentlemen," said the Doctor ; " Trot-
wood Cnpperfield."

One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of
nis place and welcomed me. He looked like a young
clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and
good-humoured ; and he showed me my place, and presented

228 PERSONAL HISTORY AKD EXPERIENCE

me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have
put me at my ease, if anything could.

It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among
such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except
Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I felt as strange as
ever I have done in all my life. I was so conscious of
having passed through scenes of which they could have
no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign
to my age, appearance, and condition as one of them, that
I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an
ordinary little schoolboy. I had become, in the Murdstone
and Grinby time, however short or long it may have been,
so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I
was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things
belonging to them. Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped
away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to
night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew,
I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the
school. But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish
skill, and of book-learning too, I was made infinitely more
uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what I did
know, I was much farther removed from my companions
than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they
would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance
with the King's Bench Prison? Was there anything about
me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with
the Micawber family — all those pawnings, and sellings,
and suppers — in spite of myself ? Suppose some of the
boys had seen me coming through Canterbury, wayworn
and ragged, and should find me out? What would they
say, who made so light of money, if they could know how
I had scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase
of my daily saveloy and beer, or my slices of pudding?
How would it affect them, who were so innocent of Lon-
don life and London streets, to discover how knowing I
was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest
phases of both? All this ran in my head so much, on
that first day at Doctor Strong's, that I felt distrustful
of my slightest look and gesture; shrank within myself
whensoever I was approached by one of my new school-
fellows ; and hurried off, the minute school was over, afraid
of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice
or advance.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 229

But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield's old
house, that when I knocked at it, with my new school-
books under my arm, I began to feel my uneasiness soften-
ing away. As I went up to my airy old room, the grave
shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and
fears, and to make the jjast more indistinct. I sat there,
sturdily conning my books, until dinner-time (we were out
of school for good at three) ; and went down, hopeful of
becoming a passable sort of boy yet.

Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father,
who was detained by some one in his office. She met me
with her pleasant smile, and asked me how I liked the
school. I told her I should like it very much, I hoped ;
but I was a little strange to it at first.

" You have never been to school," I said, "have you? "

"Oh, yes! Everyday."

" Ah, but you mean here, at your own home? "

"Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she
answered, smiling and shaking her head. "His house-
keeper must be in his house, you know."

"He is very fond of you, I am sure," I said.

She nodded "Yes," and went to the door to listen for
his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs.
But, as he was not there, she came back again.

" Mama has been dead ever since I was born," she said,
in her quiet way. " I only know her picture, down stairs.
I saw you looking at it yesterday. Did you think whose it

was

9 »

I told her yes, because it was so like herself.

"Papa says so, too," said Agnes, pleased. "Hark!
That's papa now ! "

Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went
to meet him, and as they came in, hand in hand. He
greeted me cordially ; and told me I should certainly be
happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the gentlest
of men.

"There may be some, perhaps — I don't know that there
are — who abuse his kindness," said Mr. Wickfield. " Never
be one of those, Trotwood, in anything. He is the least
suspicious of mankind; and whether that's a merit, or
whether it's a blemish, it deserves consideration in all deal-
ings with the Doctor, great or small."

He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied

230 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

with something; but I did not pursue the question in my
mind, for dinner was just then announced, and we went
down and took the same seats as before.

We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his
red head and his lank hand at the door, and said :

''Here's Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, Sir."

"I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon," said his
master.

" Yes, Sir," returned Uriah; "but Mr. Maldon has come
back, and he begs the favour of a word."

As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked
at me, and looked at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and
looked at the plates, and looked at every object in the room,
I thought, — yet seemed to look at nothing; he made such
an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes duti-
fully on his master.

"I beg your pardon. It's only to say, on reflection,"
observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah's head was pushed
away, and the speaker's substituted — "pray excuse me for
this intrusion — that as it seems I have no choice in the
matter, the sooner I go abroad the better. My cousin
Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have
her friends within reach rather than to have them banished,
and the old Doctor "

" Doctor Strong, was that? " Mr. Wickfleld interposed,
gravely.

"Doctor Strong of course," returned the other; "I call
him the old Doctor — it's all the same, you know."

"I don't know," returned Mr. Wickfield.

'•'Well, Doctor Strong," said the other — "Doctor Strong
was of the same mind, I believed. But as it appears from
the course you take with me that he has changed his miiid,
why there's no more to be said, except that the sooner I
am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I'd come back
and say, that the sooner I am off the better, ^lien a
plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering
on the bank."

" There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your
case, Mr. Maldon, you may depend upon it," said Mr.
\Vickfield.

" Thank' ee," said the other. "Much obliged. I don't
want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gra-
cious thing to do; otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 231

could easily arrange it in her own way. I suppose Annie
would only have to say to the old Doctor "

" Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to
her husband— do I follow you? " said Mr. Wickfield.

"Quite so/"' returned the other. " — would only have to
say, that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and
so; and it would be so and so, as a matter of course."

"And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon? " asked
Mr. Wickfield, sedately eating his dinner.

"Why, because Annie's a charming young girl, and the
old Doctor — Doctor Strong, I mean — is not quite a charm-
ing young boy," said Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. "No
offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean that I
suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable, in that
sort of marriage."

" Compensation to the lady, Sir? " asked Mr. Wickfield
gravely.

"To the lady, Sir," Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laugh-
ing. But appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on
with his dinner in the same sedate, immovable manner, and
that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his
face, he added:

" However, I have said what I came back to say, and,
with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself
off. Of course I shall observe your directions, in consider-
ing the matter as one to be arranged between you and me
solely, and not to be referred to, up at the Doctor's."

" Have you dined? " asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion
of his hand towards the table.

"Thank'ee. I am going to dine," said Mr. Maldon,
" with my cousin Annie. Good-bye ! "

Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thought-
fully as he went out. He was- rather a shallow sort of
young gentleman, I though c, with a handsome face, a rapid
utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this was the first
I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon ; whom I had not expected
to see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that
morning.

When we had dined, we went up-stairs again, where
everything went on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes
set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, and Mir*
Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal.
Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked

232 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me.
In good time she made tea ; and afterwards, when I brought
down my books, looked into them, and showed me what
she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she
said it was), and what was the best way to learn and under-
stand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid
manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write
these words. The influence for all good, which she came
to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to de-
scend upon my breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't
love Agnes — no, not at all in that way — but I feel that
there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is ;
and that the soft light of the coloured window in the
church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me
when I am near her, and on everything around.

The time having come for her withdrawal for the night,
and she having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand,
preparatory to going away myself. But he checked me and
said : " Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or to go
elsewhere? "

"To stay," I answered, quickly.

" You are sure? "

" If you please. If I may ! "

"Why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am
afraid," he said.

"Not more dull for me than Agnes, Sir. Not dull at
all!"

"'Than Agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great
chimney-piece, and leaning against it. " Than Agnes ! "

He had drunk wine that evening (or I fancied it), until
his eyes were bloodshot. Not that I could see them now,
for they were cast down, and shaded by his hand ; but I
had noticed them a little while before.

"Now I wonder," he muttered, "whether my Agnes tires
of me. When should I ever tire of her? But that's differ-
ent, that's quite different."

He was musing, not speaking to me ; so I remained quiet.

"A dull old house," he said, "and a monotonous life;
but I must have her near me. I must keep her near me.
If the thought that I may die and leave my darling, or that
my darling may die and leave me, comes like a spectre, to
distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned
in "

OF DAYID COPPERFIELD. 233

He did not supply the word ; but pacing slowly to the
place where he had sat, and mechanically going through
the action of pouring wine from the empty decanter, set it
down and paced back again.

" If it is miserable to bear when she is here," he said,
"what would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot
try that."

He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long
that I could not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing
him by going, or to remain quietly where I was, until he
should come out of his reverie. At length he aroused him-
self, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered
mine.

" Stay with us, Trotwood, eh? " he said, in his usual
manner, and as if he were answering something I had just
said. " I am glad of it. You are company to us both. It
is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, whole-
some for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us."

"I am sure it is for me, Sir," I said. "I am so glad to
be here."

"That's a fine fellow! " said Mr. TViekfield. "As long
as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here." He shook
hands with me upon it, and clapped me on the back; and
told me that when I had anything to do at night after Agnes
had left us, or when I wished to read for my own pleasure,
I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and
if I desired it for company's sake, and to sit with him. I
thanked him for his consideration ; and, as he went down
soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with
a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half -an-hour, of his
permission.

But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immedi-
ately feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had
a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead I
found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstra-
tive attention, that his lank fore-finger followed up every
line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or
so I fully believed) like a snail.

"You are working late to-night, Uriah," says I.

"Yes, Master Copperfleld," says Uriah.

As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him
more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing
as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his

234 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one ob
each side, to stand for one.

"I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield," said
Uriah.

" What work, then? " I asked.

•' I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copper-
field," said Uriah. "I am going through Tidd's Practice.
Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield ! "

My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I
watched him reading on again, after this rapturous excla-
mation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I
observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed,
with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncom-
fortable way of expanding and contracting themselves ; that
they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly
ever twinkled at all.

" I suppose you are quite a great lawyer ? " I said, after
looking at him for some time.

" Me, Master Copperfield? " said Uriah. " Oh, no. I'm
a very umble person."

It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed ; for
he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to
squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in
a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.

"I am well aware that I am the umblest person going, "
said Uriah Heep, modestly; "let the other be where he
may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We
live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much
to be thankful for. My father's former calling was umble.
He was a sexton."

" What is he now? " I asked.

"He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copper-
field," said Uriah Heep. "But we have much to be thank-
ful for. How much have I to be thankful for in living with
Mr. Wickfield!"

I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield
'ong?

"I have been with him going on four year, Mastei
Copperfield," said Uriah; shutting up his book, after care-
fully marking the place where he had left off. " Since a
year after my father's death. How much have I to be
thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful
for, in Mr. Wickfield' s kind intention to give me my articles,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 235

which would otherwise not lay within the unible means of
mother and self ! "

"Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a
regular lawyer, I suppose? " said I.

" With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,"
returned Uriah.

'• Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield' s business,
one of these days," I said, to make myself agreeable ;
" and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wick-
field."

"Oh, no, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, shaking
his head, " I am much too umble for that ! "

He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on
the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility,
eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the
creases in his cheeks.

"Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copper-
field," said Uriah. "If you have known him long, you
know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you,"

I replied that I was certain he was ; but that I had not
known him long myself, though he was a friend of my
aunt's.

"Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "Your
aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield ! "

He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express
enthusiasm, which was very ugly ; and which diverted my
attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to
the snaky twistings of his throat and body.

"A sweet lady, Master Copperfield! " said Uriah Heep.
" She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Cop-
perfield, I believe?"

I said, "Yes," boldly; not that I knew anything about
it, Heaven forgive me !

"I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield," said Uriah.
"But I am sure you must have."

"Everybody must have," I returned.

"Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep,
•'for that remark ! It is so true ! Umble as I am, I know
it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield! "

He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement
of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements
for going home.

"Mother will be expecting me," he said, referring to a

236 PERSONAL HISTORY AJSD EXPERIENCE

pale, inexpressive -faced watch m his pocket, "and getting
uneasy ; for though we are very umble, Master Copperfield,
we are much attached to one another. If you would come
and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly
dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I
should be."

I said I should be glad to come.

"Thank you, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, put-
ting his book away upon the shelf. " I suppose you stop
here, some time, Master Copperfield? "

I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as
long as I remained at school.

" Oh, indeed ! " exclaimed Uriah. " I should think you
would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield ! "

I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no
such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody ; but
Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances,
" Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would,
indeed!" and, '4Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should
think you would, certainly ! " over and over again. Being,
at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me
if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out*
and on my answering " Yes," instantly extinguished it.
After shaking hands with me — his hand felt like a fish,
in the dark — he opened the door into the street a very little,
and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back
into the house : which cost me some trouble and a fall over
his stool. This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my
dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half
the night ; and dreaming, among other things, that he had
launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition,
with a black flag at the mast-head, bearing the inscription
"Tidd's Practice," under which diabolical ensign he was
carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be
drowned.

I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to
school next day, and a good deal the better next day, and
so shook it off by degrees, that in less than a fortnight I
was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions.
I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough
in their studies ; but custom would improve me in the first
respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accord-
ingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 237

and gained great commendation. And, in a very little
while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to
me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew
so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long
time.

Doctor Strong's was an excellent school; as different
from Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very
gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system ;
with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith
of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their pos-
session of those qualities unless they proved themselves
unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that
we had a part in the management of the place, and in
sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon
became warmly attached to it — I am sure I did for one,
and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being
otherwise — and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it
credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of
liberty ; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken
of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appear-
ance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and
Doctor Strong's boys.

Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's
house, and through them I learned, at second hand, some
particulars of the Doctor's history— as how he had not yet
been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady I
had seen in the study, whom he had married for love ; for
she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations
(so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house
and home. Also, how the Doctor's cogitating manner was
attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for
Greek roots ; which, in my innocence and ignorance, I sup-
posed to be a botanical furore on the Doctor' s part, especially
as he always looked at the ground when he walked about,
until I understood that they were roots of words, with a
view to a new Dictionary which he had in contemplation.
Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had
made a calculation, I was informed, of the time this Dic-
tionary would take in completing, on the Doctor's plan, and
at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered that it might
be done m one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years,
counting from the Doctor's last, or sixty-second, birth
day.

238 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school
and it must have been a badly-composed school if he had
been anything else, for he was the kindest of men ; with a
simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts
of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked up and down
that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the
house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after
him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how
much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if
any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his
creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a
tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two
days. It was so notorious in the house, that the masters
and head-boys took pains to cut these marauders off at
angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them out of the
courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their
presence ; which was sometimes happily effected within a
few yards of him, without his knowing anything of the
matter, as he jogged to and fro. Outside his own domain,
and unprotected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. He
would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give away. In
fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea,
and never had, on what authority, but I have believed it
for so many years that I feel quite certain it is true), that
on a frosty day, one winter-time, he actually did bestow
his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal
in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door
to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally
recognised, being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathe-
dral. The legend added that the only person who did not
identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when they were
shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-
hand shop of no very good repute, where such things were
taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to
handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious
novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improve-
ment on his own.

It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty
young wife. He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing
his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a
good man. I often saw them walking in the garden where
the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation
of them in the study or the parlour. She appeared to me

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 239

to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him very much,
though I never thought her vitally interested in the Dic-
tionary: some cumbrous fragments of which work the
Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of
his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as
they walked about.

I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had
taken a liking for me on the morning of my introduction to
the Doctor, and was always afterwards kind to me, and
interested in me ; and because she was very fond of Agnes,
and was ofteD backwards and forwards at our house. There
was a curious constraint between her and Mr. Wickfield, I
thought (of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore
off. When she came there of an evening, she always shrank
'from accepting his escort home, and ran away with me
instead. And sometimes, as we were running gaily across
the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we
would meet Mr. Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to
see us.

Mrs. Strong's mama was a lady I took great delight in.
Her name was Mrs. Markleham ; but our boys used to call
her the Old Soldier, on account of her generalship, and the
skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations
against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman,
who used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable
cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, and two arti-
ficial butterflies supposed to be hovering above the flowers.
There was a superstition among us that this cap had come
from France, and could only originate in the workmanship
of that ingenious nation : but all I certainly know about it
is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, where-
soever Mrs. Markleham made her appearance; that it was
carried about to friendly meetings in a Hindoo basket ; that
the butterflies had the gift of trembling constantly ; and that
they improved the shining hours at Doctor Strong's expense,
like busy bees.

I observed the Old Soldier — not to adopt the name disre-
spectfully— to pretty good advantage, on a night which is
made memorable tome by something else I shall relate. It
was the night of a little party at the Doctor's, which was
given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Maldon' s departure for
India, whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that
kind : Mr. Wickfield having at length arranged the business.

240 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

It happened to be the Doctor's birthday, too. We had had
a holiday, had made presents to him in the morning, had
made a speech to him through the head-boy, and had
cheered him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed
tears. And now, in the evening, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes,
and I, went to have tea with him in his private capacity.

Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong,
dressed in white, with cherry-coloured ribbons, was playing
the piano, when we went in ; and he was leaning over her
to turn the leaves. The clear red and white of her com-
plexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I
thought, when she turned round ; but she looked very pretty,
wonderfully pretty.

"I have forgotten, Doctor," said Mrs. Strong's mama,
when we were seated, " to pay you the compliments of the*
day : though they are, as you may suppose, very far from
being mere compliments in my case. Allow me to wish you
many happy returns."

"I thank you, ma'am," replied the Doctor.

"Many, many, many happy returns," said the Old Sol-
dier. "Not only for your own sake, but for Annie's and
John Maldon 's, and many other people's. It seems but
yesterday to me, John, when you were a little creature, a
head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to
Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden."

"My dear mama," said Mrs. Strong, "never mind that
now."

"Annie, don't be absurd," returned her mother. "If
you are to blush to hear of such things, now you are an old
married woman, when are you not to blush to hear of them? "

" Old? " exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. " Annie ? Come ! "

"Yes, John," returned the Soldier. "Virtually, an old
married woman. Although not old by years — for when did
you ever hear me say, or who has ever heard me say, that
a girl of twenty was old by years! — your cousin is the wife
of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It
is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the
Doctor. You have found in him an influential and kind
friend, who will be kinder yet, I venture to predict, if you
deserve it. I have no false pride. I never hesitate to
admit, frankly, bhat there are some members of our family
who want a friend. You were one yourself, before your
cousin's influence raised up one for you."

OF DAVID COPPEHFIELD 241

The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand
as if to make light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from
any further reminder. But Mrs. Marklehain changed her
chair for one next the Doctor's, and putting her fan on his
coat-sleeve said: ■

" So, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I ap-
pear to dwell on this rather, because I feel so very strongly.
I call it quite my monomania, it is such a subject of mine
You are a blessing to us. You really are a boon, yor know ,?

'•'Nonsense, nonsense," said the Doctor.

"No, no, I beg your pardon," retorted the Old Soldier.
" With nobody present, but our dear and confidential friend
Mr. Wickfield, I cannot consent to be. put down. I shall
begin to assert the privileges of a mother-in-law, if you go
on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly honest and
outspoken. What I am saying, is what I said when you
first overpowered me with surprise — you remember how
surprised I was?— by proposing for Annie. Not that there
was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere fact
of the proposal — it would be ridiculous to say that! — but
because, you having known her poor father, and having
known her from a baby six months old, I hadn't thought of
you in such a light at all, or indeed as a marrying man in
any way — simply that, you know."

"Ay, ay," returned the Doctor, good-huniouredly
"Never mind."

"But I do mind," said the Old Soldier, laying her fan
upon his lips. " I mind very much. I recall these things
that I may be contradicted if I am wrong. Well ! Then I
spoke to Annie, and I told her what had happened. I said,
' My dear, here's Doctor Strong has positively been and
made you the subject of a handsome declaration and an
offer. ' Did I press it in the least? No. I said, 'Now,
Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is your heart free? '
1 Mama,' she said, crying, ' I am extremely young f — which
was perfectly true — ' and I hardly know if I have a heart
at all.' c Then, my dear,' I said, ' you may rely upon it,
it's free. At all events, my love,' said I, ' Doctor Strong
is in an agitated state of mind, and must be answered. He
cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.' ' Mama,'
said Annie, still crying, ' would he be unhappy without me?
If he would, I honour and respect him so much, that I think
I will have him ' So it was settled. And then, and not
16

242 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

till then, I said to Annie, 'Annie, Doctor Strong will not
only be your husband, but he will represent your late
father : he will represent the head of our family, he will
represent the wisdom and station, and I may say the means,
of our family; and will be, in short, a boon to it.' I used
the word at the time, and I have used it again, to-day. If
I have any merit, it is consistency."

The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this
speech, with her eyes fixed on the ground ; her cousin stand-
ing near her, and looking on the ground too. She now said
very softly, in a trembling voice:

" Mama, I hope you have finished? "

"!No, my dear Annie," returned the Soldier, "I have not
quite finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply that I
have not. I complain that you really are a little unnatural
towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complain-
ing to you, I mean to complain to your husband. Now, my
dear Doctor, do look at that silly wife of yours."

As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of sim-
plicity and gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head
more. I noticed that Mr. Wickfield looked at her steadily.

"When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the
other day," pursued her mother, shaking her head and
her fan at her, plaj^fully, " that there was a family circum-
stance she might mention to you — indeed, I think, was
bound to mention — she said, that to mention it was to ask
a favour; and that, as you were too generous, and as for
her to ask was always to have, she wouldn't."

" Annie, my dear," said the Doctor. " That was wrong
It robbed me of a pleasure."

"Almost the very words I said to her! " exclaimed her
mother. "Now really, another time, when I know what
she would tell you but for this reason, and won't, I have a
great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you myself."

" I shall be glad if you will," returned the Doctor.

" Shall I ? "

"Certainly."

" Well, then, I will ! " said the Old Soxdier. " That's a
bargain." And having, I suppose, carried her point, she
tapped the Doctor's hand several times with her fan (which
she kissed first), and returned triumphantly to her former
station.

Some more company coming in, among whom were the

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 243

two masters and Adams, the talk became general; and it
naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and his voyage, and
the country he was going to, and his various plans and
prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, in a
post-chaise, for Gravesend; where the ship, in which he
was to make the voyage, lay; and was to be gone — unless
he came home on leave, or for his health — I don't know
how many years. I recollect it was settled, by general
consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and
had nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a
little heat in the warm part of the day. For my own part,
I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a modern Sindbad, and
pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in the East,
sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes — a mile
long, if they could be straightened out.

Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer : as I knew, who
often heard her singing by herself. But, whether she was
afraid of singing before people, or was out of voice that
evening, it was certain that she couldn't sing at all. She
tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon, but could not
so much as begin ; and afterwards, when she tried to sing
by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away
on a sudden, and left her quite distressed, with her head
hanging down over the keys. The good Doctor said she
was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at
cards ; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing
the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took
him into custody directly, for her partner ; and instructed
him, as the first preliminary of initiation, to give her all
the silver he had in his pocket.

AVe had a merry game, not made the less merry by the
Doctor's mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable
quantity, in spite of the watchfulness of the butterflies, and
to their great aggravation. Mrs. Strong had declined to
play, on the ground of not feeling very well ; and her cousin
Maldon had excused himself because -he had some packing
to do. When he had done it, however, he returned, and
they sat together, talking, on the sofa. From time to time
she came and looked over the Doctor's hand, and told him
what to play. She was very pale, as she bent over him,
and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out the
cards ; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention,
3Jid took no notice of this, if it were so.

244 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

At supper, we were hardly so gay. Every one appeared
zo feel that a parting of that sort was an awkward thing,
and that the nearer it approached, the more awkward it was.
Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very talkative, but was not at
his ease, and made matters worse. And they were not
improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier : who
continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon' s youth.

The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was
making everybody happy, was well pleased, and had no
suspicion but that we were all at the utmost height of
enjoyment.

"Annie, my dear," said he, looking at his watch, and
filling his glass, "it is past your cousin Jack's time, and
we must not detain him, since time and tide — both concerned
in this case — wait for no man. Mr. Jack Maldon, you have
a long voyage, and a strange country, before you ; but many
men have had both, and many men will have both, to the
end of time. The winds you are going to tempt, have
wafted thousands upon thousands to fortune, and brought
thousands upon thousands happily back."

"It's an affecting thing," said Mrs. Markleham, "how-
ever it's viewed, it's affecting, to see a fine young man one
has known from an infant, going away to the other end of
the world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing
what's before him. A young man really well deserves
constant support and patronage," looking at the Doctor,
"who makes such sacrifices."

" Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon," pursued
the Doctor, " and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly
expect, perhaps, in the natural course of things, to greet
you on your return. The next best thing is to hope to do
it, and that's my case. I shall not weary you with good
advice. You have long had a good model before you, in
your cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you
can. "

Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head.

"Farewell, Mr. Jack," said the Doctor, standing up; on
which we all stood up. " A prosperous voyage out, a thriv-
ing career abroad, and a happy return home ! "

We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr.
Jack Maldon; after which he hastily took leave of the
ladies who were there, and hurried to the door, where he
was received, as he got into the chaise, with a tremendous

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 245

broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assem-
bled on the lawn for the purpose. Running in among them
to swell the ranks, I was very near the chaise when it rolled
away; and I had a lively impression made upon me, in the
midst of the noise and dust, of having seen Mr. Jack Maldon
rattle past with an agitated face, and something cherry-
coloured in his hand.

After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for
the Doctor's wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into
the house, where I found the guests all standing in a group
about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. Jack Maldon had gone
away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, and
all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs.
Markleham cried: "Where's Annie? "

No Annie was there ; and when they called to her, no
Annie replied. But all pressing out of the room, in a
crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her lying on
the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until it was
found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was
yielding to the usual means of recovery ; when the Doctor,
who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls aside
with his hand, and said, looking around :

"Poor Annie! She's so faithful and tender-hearted!
It's the parting from her old playfellow and friend — her
favourite cousin — that has done this. Ah! It's a pity!
I am very sorry ! "

"When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and
that we were all standing about her, she arose with assis-
tance : turning her head, as she did so, to lay it on the
Doctor's shoulder — or to hide it, I don't know which. We
went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor
and her mother ; but she said, it seemed, that she was better
than she had been since morning, and that she would rather
be brought among us ; so they brought her in, looking very
white and weak, I thought, and sat her on a sofa.

"Annie, my dear," said her mother, doing something to
her dress. " See here ! You have lost a bow. Will any-
body be so good as find a ribbon ; a cherry-coloured ribbon? "

It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We ail
looked for it ; I myself looked everywhere, I am certain —
but nobody could find it.

" Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie ? " said
her mother*

246 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I wondered how I could have thought she looked white.
or anything but burning red, when she answered that she
had had it safe, a little while ago, she thought, but it was
not AForth looking for.

Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found.
She entreated that there might be no more searching ; but
it was still sought for in a desultory way, until she was
quite well, and the company took their departure.

We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and
I — Agnes and I admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield
scarcely raising his eyes from the ground. When we, at
last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered that she had
left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any service
to her, I ran back to fetch it.

I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which
was deserted and dark. But a door of communication
between that and the Doctor's study, where there was a
light, being open, I passed on there, to say what I wanted,
and to get a candle.

The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside,
and his young wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor,
with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manu-
script explanation or statement of a theory out of that
interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him.
But, with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful
in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its
abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy
horror of I don't know what. The eyes were wide open,
and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders,
and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost
ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of
what it was expressive. I cannot even say of what it is
expressive to me now, rising again before my older judg-
ment. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, anc
trustfulness — I see them all ; and in them all, I see that
horror of I don't know what.

My entrance, aud my saying what I wanted, roused her
It disturbed the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace
the candle I had taken from the table, he was patting hex
head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless
drone to let her tempt him into reading on ; and he would
have her go to bed.

But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her

OF DAVID CO^PERFIELD. 247

stay — to let her feel assured (I heard ner murmur some
broken wordu to this effect) that she was in his confidence
that night. And, as she turned again towards him, after
glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the door,
I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at
him with the same face, something quieted, as he resumed
his reading.

It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it
d long time afterwards ; as I shall have occasion to narrate
when the time comes

CHAPTER XV11

SOMEBODY TURNS UP

It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since 1
ran away ; but, of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon
as I was housed at Dover, and another and a longer letter,
containing all particulars fully related, when my aunt took
me formally under her protection. On my being settled at
Doctor Strong's I wrote to her again, detailing my happy
condition and prospects. I never could have derived any-
thing like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick
had given me, that I felt in sending a gold half -guinea to
Peggotty, per post, inclosed in this last letter, to discharge
the sum I had borrowed of her : in which epistle, not before,
I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart.

To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly,
if not as concisely, as a merchant's clerk. Her utmost
powers of expression (which were certainly not great in
ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt
on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent
and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end,
except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief. But
the blots were more expressive to me than the best compos-
ition ; for they showed me that Peggotty had been crying
all over the paper, and what could I have desired more ?

I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not
take quite kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short
after so long a prepossession the other way. We never
knew a person, she wrote ; but to think that Miss Betsey

248 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

should seem to be so different from what she had been
thought to be, was a Moral! — That was her word. She
was evidently still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her
grateful duty to her but timidly ; and she was evidently
afraid of me, too, and entertained the probability of my
running away again soon : if I might judge from the repeated
hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was
always to be had of her for the asking.

She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me
very much, namely, that there had been a sale of the furni-
ture at our old home, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were
gone away, and the house was shut up, to be let or sold.
God knows I had no part in it while they remained there,
but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether
abandoned ; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and
the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I
imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it,
how the cold rain would beat upon the window-glass, how
the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty
rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh
of the grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree ; and
it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all con-
nected with my father and mother were faded away

There was no other news in Peggotty' s letters. Mr.
Barkis was an excellent husband, she said, though still a
little near ; but we all had our faults, and she had plenty
(though I am sure I don't know what they were) ; and he
sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for
me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs.
Gurnmidge was but poorly, and little Em'ly wouldn't send
her love, but said that Peggotty might send it, if she
liked.

All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only
reserving to myself the mention of little Em'ly, to whom I
instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline.

While I was yet new at Doctor Strong's, she made several
excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and always at
unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking
me by surprise. But, finding me well employed, and
bearing a good character, and hearing on all hands that I
rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued these visits .
I saw her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week, when
I went over to Dover for a treat; ami I saw Mr. Dick every

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 249

alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at
noon, to stay until next morning.

On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a
leathern writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and
the Memorial; in relation to which document he had a
notion that time was beginning to press now, and that it
really must be got out of hand.

Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his
visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to
open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered
with the stipulation that he should not be served with more
than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day.
This, and the reference of all his little bills at the County
Inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid,
induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his
money, and not to spend it. I found on further investiga-
tion that this was so, or at least there was an agreement
between him and my aunt that he should account to her for
all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her,
and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary
of launching into expense. On this point, as well as on all
other possible points, Mr. Dick was convinced that my aunt
was the wisest and most wonderful of women ; as he repeat-
edly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper.

" Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after
imparting this confidence to me, one Wednesday; "who's
the man that hides near our house and frightens her? "

" Frightens my aunt, Sir?"

Mr. Dick nodded. " I thought nothing would have fright-
ened her," he said, "for she's " here he whispered

softly, " don't mention it— the wisest and most wonderful
of women." Having said which, he drew back, to observe
the effect which this description of her made upon me.

"The first time he came," said Mr. Dick, "was — let me
see — sixteen hundred and forty-nine was the date of King
Charles's execution. I think you said sixteen hundred and
forty-nine? "

"Yes, Sir."

"I don't know how it can be," said Mr. Dick, sorely
puzzled and shaking his head. " I don't think 1 am as old
as that."

"Was it in that year that the man appeared., Sir?*5
1 asked

250 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Why, really/' said Mr. Dick, "I don't see how it can
have been in that year, Trotwood. Did you get that date
out of history? "

"Yes, Sir."

" I suppose history never lies, does it? " said Mr. Dick,
with a gleam of hope.

" Oh dear, no, Sir ! " I replied, most decisively. I was
ingenuous and young, and I thought so.

"I can't make it out," said Mr. Dick, shaking his head.
"There's something wrong, somewhere. However, it was
very soon after the mistake was made of putting some of
the trouble out of King Charles's head into my head, that
the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood
after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our
house."

" Walking about? " I inquired.

" Walking about? " repeated Mr. Dick. " Let me see. I
must recollect a bit. N — no, no; he was not walking
about."

I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he ivas
doing.

'• Well, he wasn't there at all," said Mr. Dick, "until he
came up behind her, and whispered. Then she turned round
and fainted, and I stood still and looked at him, and he
walked away ; but that he should have been hiding ever
since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most extraordin-
ary thing ! "

" Has he been hiding ever since? " I asked.

"To be sure he has," retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head
gravely. " Never came out, till last night ! We were walk-
ing last night, and he came up behind her again, and I knew
him again."

" And did he frighten my aunt again? "

"All of a shiver," said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that
affection and making his teeth chatter. "Held by the
palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, come here," getting me
close to him, that he might whisper very softly ; " why did
she a^ve him money, boy, in the moonlight? "

" He was a beggar, perhaps."

Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the sug-
gestion ; and having replied a great many times, and with
great confidence, " No beggar, no beggar, no beggar, Sir ! "
weDt on to say, that from his window he had afterwards.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 25;.

and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money
outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk
away — into the ground again, as he thought probable — and
was seen no more : while my aunt came hurriedly and
secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning,
been quite different from her usual self ; which preyed on
Mr. Dick's mind.

I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that
the unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick' s,
and one of the line of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned
him so much difficulty ; but after some reflection I began to
entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of an
attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick
himself from under my aunt's protection, and whether my
aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I
knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price
for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached
to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears
favoured this supposition ; and for a long time his Wednes-
day hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a
misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual.
There he always appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing,
and happy ; and he never had anything more to tell of the
man who could frighten my aunt.

These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick's
life ; they were far from being the least happy of mine.
He soon became known to every boy in the school ; and
though he never took an active part in any game but kite-
flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as any one
among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a
match at marbles or pegtop, looking on with a face of
unutterable interest, and hardly breathing at the critical
times. How often, at hare and hounds, have I seen him
mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on tc
action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious
of King Charles the Martyr's head, and all belonging to it!
How many a summer-hour have I known to be but blissful
minutes to him in the cricket-field! How many winter
days have I seen him, standing blue-nosed, in the snow and
east wind, looking at the boys going down the long slide,
and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture !

He was a universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little
things was transcendent. He could cut oranges into such

252 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

devices as none of us had an idea of. He could make a boat
out of anything, from a skewer upwards. He could turn
cranipbones into chessmen ; fashion Roman chariots from
old court cards ; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels,
and birdcages of old wire. But he was greatest of all,
perhaps, in the articles of string and straw ; with which we
were all persuaded he could do anything that could be done
by hands.

Mr. Dick's renown was not long confined to us. After
a few Wednesdays, Doctor Strong himself made some
inquiries of me about him, and I told him all my aunt had
told me; which interested the Doctor so much that he
requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented
to him. This ceremony I performed ; and the Doctor beg-
ging Mr. Dick, whensoever he should not find me at the
coach-office, to come on there, and rest himself until our
morning's work was over, it soon passed into a custom for
Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were
a little late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk
about the courtyard, waiting for me. Here he made the
acquaintance of the Doctor's beautiful young wife (paler
than formerly, all this time ; more rarely seen by me or any
one, I think ; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and
so became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last,
he would come into the school and wait. He always sat
in a particular corner, on a particular stool, which was
called "Dick," after him ; here he would sit, with his grey
head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might
be going on with a profound veneratior for the learning he
had never been able to acquire.

This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom
he thought the most subtle and accomplished philosopher
of any age. It was long before Mr. Dick ever spoke to him
otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he and the
Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk
together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which
was known among us as The Doctor's Walk^ Mr. Dick
would pull off his hat at intervals to show his respect for
wisdom and knowledge. How it ever came about, that the
Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous Dictionary,
in these walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the
same, at first, as reading to himself. However, it passed
into a custom too; and Mr. Dick, listening with a face

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 253

shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of hearts
believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in
the world.

As I think of them going up and down before those
schoolroom windows— the Doctor reading with his compla-
cent smile, an occasional nourish of the manuscript, or
grave motion of his head ; and Mr. Dick listening, enchained
by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering God knows
where, upon the wings of hard words— I think of it as one
of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have evei
seen. I feel as if they might go walking to and fro for ever,
and the world might somehow be the better for it— as if a
thousand things it makes a noise about, were not one-half
so good for it or me.

Agnes was one of Mr. Dick's friends, very soon; and in
often coming to the house, he made acqaintance with Uriah.
The friendship between himself and me increased contin-
ually, and it was maintained on this odd footing: that,
while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my
guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of
doubt that arose, and invariably guided himself by my
advice ; not only having a high respect for my native sagac-
ity, but considering that I inherited a good deal from my
aunt.

One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with
Mr. Dick from the hotel to the coach-office before going back
to school (for we had an hour's school before breakfast), I
met Uriah in the street, who reminded me of the promise I
had made to take tea with himself and his mother : adding,
with a writhe, "but I didn't expect you to keep it, Master
Copperfield, we're so very uinble."

I really had not yet been able to make up my mind
whether I liked Uriah or detested him ; and I was very
doubtful about it still, as I stood looking him in the face
in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to be supposed
proud, and said I only wanted to be asked.

'• Oh, if that's all, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, " and
it really isn't our umbleness that prevents you, will you
come this evening? But if it is our umbleness, I hope you
won't mind owning to it, Master Copperfield; for we are
well aware of our condition."

I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he
approved, as I had no doubt he would, I would come with

254 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

pleasure. So, at six o'clock that evening, which was one
of the early office evenings, I announced myself as ready,
to Uriah.

"Mother will be proud, indeed," he said, as we walked
away together. " Or she would be proud, if it wasn't sinful,
Master Copperfield."

" Yet you didn't mind supposing /was proud this morn-
ing," I returned.

" Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield ! " returned Uriah.
"Oh, believe me, no! Such a thought never came into
my head! I shouldn't have deemed it at all proud if you
had thought us too umble for you. Because we are so very
umble. "

" Have you been studying much law lately? " I asked,
to change the subject.

"Oh, Master Copperfield," he said, with an air of self-
denial, " my reading is hardly to be called study. I have-
passed an hour or two in the evening, sometimes, with Mr.
Tidd."

" Kather hard, I suppose? " said I.

" He is hard to me sometimes," returned Uriah. " But I
don't know what he might be, to a gifted person."

After beating a little tune on his chin as we walked on,
with the two forefingers of his skeleton right-hand, he
added :

"There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield —
Latin words and terms — in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a
reader of my umble attainments."

"Would you like to be taught Latin?" I said, briskly,
"I will teach it you with pleasure as I learn it."

"Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," he answered,
shaking his head. "I am sure it's very kind of you to
make the offer, but I am much too umble to accept it. "

" What nonsense, Uriah ! "

"Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield!
I am greatly obliged, but I should like it of all things, 1
assure you; but I am far too umble. There are people
enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my
doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning
Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better
not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on umbly,
Master Copperfield."

I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in b:s

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 255

cheeks so deep, as when he delivered himself of these senti-
ments : shaking his head all the time, and writhing mod-
estly.

"I think yon are wrong, Uriah/' I said. "I dare *ay
there are several things that I could teach you, if you would
like to learn them."

"Oh, I don't doubt that, Master Copperfield," he an-
swered ; " not in the least. But not being umble yourself,
you don't judge well, perhaps, for them that are. I won't
provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. I'm much
too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, Master Copper-
field!"

We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight
into from the street, and found there Mrs. Heep, who was
the dead image of Uriah, only short. She received me with
the utmost humility, and apologized to me for giving her
son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they had
their natural affections, which they hoped would give no
offence to any one. It was a perfectly decent room, half
parlour and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. The
tea-things were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiJ
ing on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an
escritoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening ;
there was Uriah's blue bag lying down and vomiting papers ;
there was a company of Uriah's books commanded by Mr.
Tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the
usual articles of furniture. I don't remember that any
individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look ; but I do
remember that the whole place had.

It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep's humility, that she
still wore weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that
had occurred since Mr. Heep's decease, she still wore
weeds. I think there was some compromise in the cap;
but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her
mourning.

" This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure,"
said Mrs. Heep, making the tea, " when Master Copperfield
pays us a visit. "

" I said you'd think so, mother," said Uriah.

" If I could have wished father to remain among us for
any reason," said Mrs. Heep, "it would have been, that
he might have known his company this afternoon."

I felt embarrassed by these compliments ; but I was sen

256 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

si Die, too, of being entertained as an honoured guest? and 1
thought Mrs. Heep an agreeable woman.

"My Uriah," said Mrs. Heep, "has looked forward to
this, Sir, a long while. He had his fears that our umble-
ness stood in the way, and I joined in them myself. Urn-
ble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall ever be,*
said Mrs. Heep.

"I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma'am," I
said, "unless you like."

"Thank you, Sir," retorted Mrs. Heep. "We know oui
station and are thankful in it."

I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and
that Uriah gradually got opposite to me, and that they re-
spectfully plied me with the choicest of the eatables on the
table. There was nothing particularly choice there, to be
sure ; but I took the will for the deed, and felt that they
were very attentive. Presently they began to talk about
aunts, and then I told them about mine ; and about fathers
and mothers, and then I told them about mine ; and then
Mrs. Heep began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then I
began to tell her about mine ; but stopped, because my aunt
had advised me to observe a silence on that subject. A
tender young cork, however, would have had no more
chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth
against a pair of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against
two battledores, than I had against Uriah and Mrs. Heep.
They did just what they liked with me ; and wormed things
out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I
blush to think of the more especially as, in my juvenile
frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confi-
dential, and felt that I was quite the patron of my two
respectful entertainers.

They were very fond of one another: that was certain.
I take it, that had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature ;
but the skill with which the one followed up whatever the
other said, was a touch of art which I was still less proof
against. When there was nothing more to be got out of
me about myself (for on the Murdstone and Grinby life,
and on my journey, I was dumb), they began about Mr.
Wickfleld and Agnes. Uriah threw the ball to Mrs. Heep,
Mrs. Heep caught it and threw it back to Uriah, Uriah
kept it up a little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep,
and so they went on tossing it about until I had no idea

OF DAVDj uOPPERFIELD. 257

who had got it, and was quite bewildered. The ball itself
was always e hanging too. 2s ow it was Mr. Wickheld, now
Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickheld, now my
admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickheld' s
business and resources, now our domestic life after dinner ;
now, the wine that Mr. Wickheld took, the reason why he
tooK it, and the pity that it was he took so much ; now one
thing, now another, then everything at once ; and all the
time, without appeal g to speak very often, or to do any-
thing but sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they
should be overcome by their humility and the honour of
my company, I found myself perpetually letting out some-
thing or other that I had no business to let out, and seeing
the effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah's dinted nostrils..

I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish
myself well out of the visit, when a figure coming down
the street passed the door — it stood open to air the room,
which was warm, the weather being close for the t;me of
year — came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaim-
ing loudly, " Copperfield! Is it possible? "

It was Mr. Micawber ! It was Mr. Micawber, with his
eye-glass, and his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and
his genteel air, and the condescending roll in his voice, all
complete !

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, putting out
his hand, " this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to
impress the mind with a sense of the instability and uncer-
tainty of all human — in short, it is a most extraordinary
meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon the
probability of something turning up (of which I am at
present rather sanguine), I find a young but valued friend
ram up, who is connected writh the most eventful period of
my life ; I may say, with the turning-point of my existence.
Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do? "

I cannot say — I really cannot say — that I was glad to see
Mr. Micawber there ; but I was glad to see him too, and
shook hands with him heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micaw-
ber was

"Thank you," said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of
old, and settling his chin in his shirt-collar. "She is tol-
erably convalescent. The twins no longer derive their
sustenance from Nature's founts — in short," said Mr,
Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they arp
37

258 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

weaned- and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling
companion. She will be rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew
her acquaintance with one who has proved himself in all
respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friend-
ship."

I said I should be delighted to see her.

"You are very good," said Mr. Micawber.

Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and
looked about him.

"I have discovered my friend Copperfield," said Mr
Micawber genteelly, and without addressing himself partic-
ularly to any one, "not in solitude, but partaking of a
social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who is
apparently her offspring — in short," said Mr. Micawber,
in another of his bursts of confidence, " her son. I shall
esteem it an honour to be presented. "

I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make
Mr. Micawber known to Uriah Heep and his mother ; which
I accordingly did. As they abased themselves before him,
Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most
courtly manner.

"Any friend of my friend Copperfield' s," said Mr.
Micawber, "has a personal claim upon myself."

"We are too umble, Sir," said Mrs. Heep, "my son and
me, to be the friends of Master Copperfield. He has been
so good as take his tea with us, and we are thankful to him
for his company; also to you, Sir, for your notice."

"Ma'am," leturned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, "you are
very obliging : and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still
in the wine trade? "

I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away ;
and replied, with my hat in my hand, and a very red
face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil at Doctor
Strong's.

"A pupil?" said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows.
u 1 am extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind
like my friend Copperfield' s " — to Uriah and Mrs. Heep, —
" does not require that cultivation which, without his
knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is
a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation — in short," said
Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, " it
is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any
extent."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 259

Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one an-
other, made a ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to
express his concurrence in this estimation of me.

" Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, Sir ? " I said, to
get Mr. Micawber away.

"If you will do her that favour, Copperfield," replied
Mr. Micawrber, rising. " I have no scruple in saying, in
the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has,
for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary
difficulties." I knew he was certain to say something of
this kind ; he always would be so boastful about his diffi-
culties. " Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficul-
ties Sometimes my difficulties have — in short, have floored
me There have been times when I have administered a
succession of facers to them ; there have been times when
they have been too many for me, and I have given in, and
said to Mrs. Micawber in the words of Cato, f Plato, thou
reasonest well. It's all up now. I can show fight no
more.' But at no time of my life," said Mr. Micawber,
'•have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in
pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, chiefly
arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at
two and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my
friend Copperfield."

Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying,
"Mr. Heep! Good evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,"
and then walking out with me in his most fashionable man-
ner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his
shoes, and humming a tune as we went.

It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he
occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commer-
cial room, and strongly flavoured with tobacco-smoke. I
think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell
appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and
there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it
w^as near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and
jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, un-
derneath a picture of a racehorse, with her head close to
the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-
waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to
whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, " My dear, allow
me to introduce to you a pupil of Doctor Strong's."

I noticed, by-the-by, that although Mr. Micawber was

260 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

just as much confused as ever about my age and standing,
he always remembered, as a genteel thing, that I was a
pupil of Doctor Strong's.

Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I
was very glad to see her too, and, after an affectionate
greeting on both sides, sat down on the small sofa near
her

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "if you will mention to
Copperfield what our present position is, which I have no
doubt he will like to know, I will go and look at the paper
the while, and see whether anything turns up among the
advertisements. "

"I thought you were at Plymouth, ma'am," I said to
Mrs. Micawber, as he went out.

" My dear Master Copperfield," she replied, " we went
to Plymouth."

"To be on the spot," I hinted.

"Just so," said Mrs. Micawber. "To be on the spot.
But, the truth is, talent is not wanted in the Custom House.
The local influence of my family was quite unavailing to
obtain any employment in that department, for a man of
Mr. Micawber' s abilities. They would rather not have a
man of Mr. Micawber' s abilities. He would only show the
deficiency of the others. Apart from which," said Mrs.
Micawber, " I will not disguise from you, my dear Master
Copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is
settled in Plymouth became aware that Mr. Micawber was
accompanied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sis-
ter, and by the twins, they did not receive him with that
ardour which he might have expected, being so newly
released from captivity. In fact," said Mrs. Micawber,
lowering her voice, — " this is between ourselves — our recep-
tion was cool."

# Dear me!" I said.

"Yes," said Mrs. Micawoer. "It is truly painful to
contemplate mankind in such an aspect, Master Copper-
field, but our reception was, decidedly, cool. There is no
doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my family which
is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micaw
ber, before we had been there a week."

I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of
themselves.

"Still, so it was/' continued Mrs. Micawber. "Under

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 2el

such circumstances, what could a man of Mr. >*****«%
spirit do. But one obvious course was left To bonow at
that branch of my family the money to return to London,,
and to return at any sacrifice." |

■• Then you all came back agam, ma am? I said.

"We all came back again," replied Mrs. Micawber
" Since then, I have consulted other branches of my f amilj
on the course which it is most expedient for Mr. Micawber
to take-for I maintain that he must take some course,
Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively
"It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic,
cannot live upon air."

■■ Certainly, ma'am," said I. J . „

'•The opinion of those other branches of my family,
pursued Mrs. Micawber, "is, that Ifo Micawber should
immediately turn his attention to eoals.

:^ia^L., Header. "To the coal ^rade
Air Micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that theie
££ht be an opening for a man of his talent in the Medway
Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very properly said,
the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and *£the
Medway. Which we came .and saw. I say we. Master
Copperfield; for I never will," said Mrs Micawber with
emotion, "I never will desert Mr. Micawber.
I murmured my admiration and approbation.
"We came," repeated Mrs. Micawber, "and saw the
Medway. My opinion of the coal trade on that river, is,
Sat it may require talent, but that it certainly requires
capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, ^Micaw-
ber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the
Medway; and that is my individual conclusion Being so
near here, Mr. Micawber was' of opinion that it would be
rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral. Firstly, on
account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never
having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great prob-
abilitv of something turning up in a cathedral town. We
have been here," said Mrs. Micawber, " three days. H oth-
ing has, as vet, turned up ; and it may not surprise you, my
dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a stranger, to
know that we are at present waiting for a remittance from
London, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this
hotel Until the arrival of that remittance," said Mrs.

262 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Micawber with much feeling, " 1 am cut off from my home
(I allude to lodgings in Pentonville), from my boy and
girl, and from my twins."

I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber
in this anxious extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micaw-
ber, who now returned : adding that I only wished I had
money enough, to lend them the amount they needed. Mr.
Micawber' s answer expressed the disturbance of his mind.
He said, shaking hands with me, "Copperfleld, you are a
true friend; but when the worst comes to the worst, no
man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving mater-
ials." At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber threw her
arms round Mr. Micawber' s neck and entreated him to be
calm. He wept ; but so far recovered, almost immediately,
as to ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney
pudding an J a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morn-
ing.

When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me
so much to come and dine before they went away, that I
could not refuse. But, as I knew I could not come next
day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in the
evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at Doc-
tor Strong's in the course of the morning (having a pre-
sentiment that the remittance would arrive by that post),
and propose the day after, if it would suit me better.
Accordingly I was called out of school next forenoon, and
found Mr. Micawber in the parlour ; who had called to say
that the dinner would take place as proposed. When I
asked him if the remittance had come, he pressed my hand
and departed.

As I was looking out of the window that same evening,
it surprised me, and made me rather uneasy, to see Mr.
Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, arm-in-arm : Uriah
humbly sensible of the honour that was done him, and Mr,
Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage
to Uriah. But I was still more surprised, when I went to
the little hotel next day at the appointed dinner-hour,
which was four o'clock, to find, from what Mr. Micawber
said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk
brandy-and-water at Mrs. Heep's.

"And I'll tell you what, my dear Copperfield," said Mr.
Micawber, "your friend Heep is a young fellow who might
be Attorney-General. If I had known that young man, a*

OF DAVID COPPERF1ELD. 263

the period when my difficulties came to a crisis, all I can
say is, that I believe my creditors would have been a great
deal better managed than they were."

I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that
Mr. Micawber had paid them nothing at all as it was ; but
I did not like to ask. Neither did I like to say, that I
hoped he had not been too communicative to Uriah ; or to
inquire if they had talked much about me. I was afraid of
hurting Mr. Micawber' s feelings, or, at all events, Mrs.
Micawber' s, she being very sensitive ; but I was uncomfort-
able about it, too, and often thought about it afterwards.

We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish
of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried
sausage meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was
wine, and there was strong ale ; and after dinner Mrs. Mi-
cawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands.

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw
him such good company. He made his face shine with the
punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over.
He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed
success to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself
had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and
that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had
passed in Canterbury. He proposed me afterwards; and
he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a review of our past
acquaintance, in the course of which, we sold the property
all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber; or, at
least, said, modestly, "If you'll allow me, Mrs. Micawber,
I shall now have the pleasure of drinking your health,
ma'am." On which Mr. Micawber delivered an eulogium
on Mrs. Micawber' s character, and said she had ever been
his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would rec-
ommend me, when I came to a marrying-time of life, to
marry such another woman, if such another woman could
be found.

As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still
more friendly and convivial. Mrs. Micawber' s spirits be-
coming elevated, too, we sang "Auld Lang Syne." When
we came to "Here's a hand, my trusty frere, " we all joined
hands round the table; and when we declared we would
"take a right gude willie-waught," and hadn't the least
idea what it meant, we were really affected.

In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as

264 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Micawber was, down to the very last moment of the
evening, when I took a hearty farewell of himself and his
amiable wife. Consequently, I was not prepared, at seven
o'clock next morning, to receive the following communica-
tion, dated half -past nine in the evening; a quarter of an
hour after I had left him.

"My dear Young Friend,

" The die is cast — all is over. Hiding the ravages of care
with a sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this
evening, that there is no hope of the remittance ! Under
these circumstances, alike humiliating to endure, humiliat-
ing to comtemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have dis-
charged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establish-
ment, by giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen
days after date, at my residence, Pentonville, London
When it becomes due, it will not be taken up. The result
is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree must
fall.

" Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear
Copperfield, be a beacon to you through life. He writes
with that intention, and in that hope. If he could think
himself of so much use, one gleam of day might, by possi-
bility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remain-
ing existence — though his longevity is, at present (to say
the least of it), extremely problematical.

" This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield,
you will ever receive

"From
"The
" Beggared Outcast,

"WlLKINS MlCAWBER."

T was so shocked by the contents of this heartrending-
letter, that I ran off directly towards the little hotel with
the intention of taking it on my way to Doctor Strong's,
and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word of comfort.
But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture
of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber' s conver-
sation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle
sticking out of his breast-pocket. As they did not see me.
I thought it best, all things considered, not to see thenk

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 265

vSo with a great weight taken off rny niind, I turned into
a by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt,
upon the whole, relieved that they were gone; though I
still liked them very much, nevertheless.

CHAPTER XVIll

A RETROSPECT.

My schooldays ! The silent gliding on of my existence
. — the unseen, unfelt progress of my life — from childhood
up to youth ! Let me think, as I look back upon that flow-
ing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves,
whether there are any marks along its course, by which I
can remember how it ran.

A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral,
where we all went together every Sunday morning, assem-
bling first at school for that purpose. The earthy smell,
the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out,
the resounding of the organ through the black and white
arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back,
and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping
and half -waking dream.

I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen, in a
few months, over several heads. But the first boy seems
to me a mighty creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy
height is unattainable. Agnes says "No," but I say
"Yes," and tell her that she little thinks what stores of
knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful Being, at
whose place she thinks I, even I, weak aspirant, may
arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public
patron, as Steerf orth was ; but I hold him in a reverential
respect. I chiefly wonder what he'll be, when he leaves
Doctor Strong's, and what mankind will do to maintain any-
place against him.

But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss
Shepherd, whom I iove.

Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls'
establishment. I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little
girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair.

266 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

The Misses Nettingalls' young ladies come to the Cathedral
too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon
Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss
Shepherd. In the service I mentally insert Miss Shep-
herd's name— I put her in among the Royal Family. At
home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out,
"Oh, Miss Shepherd! " in a transport of love.

For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feel-
ings, but, at length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the
dancing- school. I have Miss Shepherd for my partner.
I touch Miss Shepherd's glove, and feel a thrill go up the
right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say
nothing tender to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each
other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be united.

Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts
for a present, I wonder? They are not expressive of affec-
tion, they are difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular
shape, they are hard to crack, even in room-doors, and they
are oily when cracked ; yet I feel that they are appropriate
to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon
Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss
Miss Shepherd in the cloak-room. Ecstasy ! What are my
agony and indignation next day, when I hear a flying
rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss Shep-
herd in the stocks for turning in her toes !

Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision
of my life, how do I ever come to break with her? I can't
conceive. And yet a coolness grows between Miss Shepherd
and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss Shepherd having
said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and having I avowed a
preference for Master Jones — for Jones ! a boy of no merit
whatever. The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens.
At last, one day, I meet the Misses Nettingalls' establish-
ment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she
goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The
devotion of a life — it seems a life, it is all the same — is at
an end ; Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service,
and the Royal Family know her no more.

I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace.
T am not at all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls'
young ladies, and shouldn't dote on any of them, if they
were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. I
think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why

OF DAVID OOPPERFIELD. 267

the girls can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. I
am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of
my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a prom-
ising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my
aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.

The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition
of an armed head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher?
He is the terror of the youth of Canterbury. There is a
vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he
anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he
is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked
young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned
mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of this
tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentlemen.
He says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it
'em. He names individuals among them (myself included),
whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the
other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to
punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after
me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I re*
solve to fight the butcher.

It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the
corner of a wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I
am attended by a select body of our boys ; the butcher, by
two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The
preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself
stand face to face. In a moment the butcher lights ten
thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another mo-
ment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or
where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and
which the butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tus-
sle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I
see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes I see
nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; sometimes
I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open
against his face, without appearing to discompose him at
all. At last I awake, very queer about the head, as from
a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, congratu-
lated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publi-
can, and putting on his coat as he goes; from which I
augur, justly, that && victory is his.

I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks
put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy,

268 PERSONAL HISTORY AlSD EXPERIENCE

and find a great white puffy place bursting out on my uppei
lip, which swells immoderately. For three or four days
I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green
shade over my eyes ; and I should be very dull, but that
Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads
to me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has
my confidence completely, always ; I tell her all about the
butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me ; and she
;hinks I couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher,
while she shrinks and trembles at my having fought him.

Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the
head-boy in the days that are come now, nor has he been
this many and many a day.' Adams has left the school so
long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor Strong,
there are not many there, besides myself, who know him.
Adams is going to be called to the bar almost directly, and
is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am surprised
to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less
imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world
yet, either ; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty
much the same as if he had never joined it.

A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and his-
tory march on in stately hosts that seem to have no end —
and what comes next ! / am the" head-boy, now ; and look
down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending
interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was
myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems
to be no part of me ; I remember him as something left
behind upon the road of life — as something I have passed,
rather than have actually been — and almost think of him
as of some one else.

And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wick-
field's, where is she? Gone also. In her stead, the per-
fect likeness of the picture, a child likeness no more, moves
about the house ; and Agnes — my sweet sister, as I call her
in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel
of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-
denying influence — is quite a woman.

What other changes have come upon me, besides the
changes in my growth and looks, and in the knowledge I
have garnered all this while? I wear a gold watch and
chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat ;
and I use a great deal of bear's grease — which, taken in

OF DAVID COPPERF1ELD 269

conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again?
I am. I worship the eldest Miss Larkins.

The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a
tall, dark, black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest
Miss Larkins is not a chicken ; for the youngest Miss Lar-
kins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years
older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about
thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds.

The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful
thing to bear. I see them speaking to her in the street. I
see them cross the way to meet her, when her bonnet (she
has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming down the
pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet. She laughs
and talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my
own spare time in walking up and down to meet her. If I
can bow to her once in the day (I know her to bow to,
knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow
now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of
the Kace Ball, where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will
be dancing with the military, ought to have some compen-
sation, if there be even-handed justice in the world.

My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear
my newest silk neck-kerchief continually. I have no relief
but in putting on my best clothes, and having my boots
cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, to be worthier
of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to
her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Lar-
kins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of
his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to
me. When I can't meet his daughter, I go where I am
likely to meet him. To say, " How do you do, Mr. Lar-
kins? Are the young ladies and all the family quite
well? " seems so pointed, that I blush.

I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen,
and say that seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins,
what of that ? Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no
time almost. I regularly take walks outside Mr. Larkins' s
house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see
the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room,
where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp I even
walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony man-
ner, round and round the house after the family are gone
to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins' s charo-

270 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins' s in-
stead) ; wishing that a fire would burst out ; that the as-
sembled crowd would stand appalled; that I, dashing
through them with a ladder, might rear it against her win
dow, save her in my arms, go back for something she had
left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally
disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to
make a figure before Miss Larkins, and expire.— Generally,
but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me.
When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great
ball given at the Larkins' s (the anticipation of three
weeks), I indulge my fancy with pleasing images. I pic-
ture myself taking courage to make a declaration to Miss
Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon
my shoulder, and saying, " Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I be-
lieve my ears ! " I picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next
morning, and saying, "My dear Copperfield, my daughter
has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here are twenty
thousand pounds. Be happy! " I picture my aunt relent-
ing, and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong
being present at the marriage ceremony. I am a sensible
fellow, I believe — I believe, on looking back, I mean — and
modest I am sure ; but all this goes on notwithstanding.

I repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights,
chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and
the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed
in blue, with blue flowers in her hair — forget-me-nots.
As if she had any need to wear forget-me-nots ! It is the
first really grown-up party that I have ever been invited to,
and I am a little uncomfortable ; for I appear not to belong
to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say
to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my school-
fellows are, which he needn't do, as I have not come there
to be insulted. But after I have stood in the doorway for
some time, and feasted my eyes upon the goddess of my
heart, she approaches me — she, the eldest Miss Larkins! —
and asks me pleasantly, if I dance.

I stammer, with a bow, "With you, Miss Larkins."

" With no one else ? " inquires Miss Larkins.

" I should have no pleasure in dancing with any one
else."

Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes)
and says, "Next time but one, I shall be very glad."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 271

The time arrives. " It is a waltz, I think," Miss Larkins
doubtfully observes, when I present myself. "Do you
waltz? If not, Captain Bailey "

But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I
take Miss Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side
©f Captain Bailey. He is wretched, I have no doubt ; but
he is nothing to me. I have been wretched, too. I waltz
with the eldest Miss Larkins ! I don't know where, among
whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in
space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium,
until I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting
on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica,
price half-a-crown), in my buttonhole. I give it her, and
say:

"I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.''

" Indeed ! What is that ? " returns Miss Larkins.

" A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser
does gold."

" You're a bold boy," says Miss Larkins. "There."

She gives it me, not displeased ; and I put it to my lips,
and then into my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws
her hand through my arm, and says, " Now take me back
to Captain Bailey."

I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview,
and the waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain
elderly gentleman, who has been playing whist all night,
upon her arm, and says :

"Oh, here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to
know you, Mr. Copperfield."

I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am
much gratified.

''I admire your taste, Sir," says Mr. Chestle. "It does
you credit. I suppose you don't take much interest in
hops ; but I am a pretty large grower myself ; and if you
ever like to come over to our neighbourhood — neighbour-
hood of Ashford — and take a run about our place, we shall
be glad for you to stop as long as you like."

I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think
I am in a happy dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Lar-
kins once again — she says I waltz so well ! I go home in
a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all
night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear
divinity, For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous

272 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

reflections ; but I neither see her in the street, nor when 1
call. I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment
by the sacred pledge, the perished flower.

" Trotwood," says Agnes, one day after dinner. " Who
do you think is going to be married to-morrow? Some one
you admire."

"Not you, I suppose, Agnes? "

" Not me ! " raising her cheerful face from the music she
is copying. "Do you hear him, papa? — The eldest Miss
Larkins."

" To — to Captain Bailey? " I have just power enough to
ask.

"No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower."

I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take
off my ring, I wear my worst clothes, I use no bear's
grease, and I frequently lament over the late Miss Lar-
kins's faded flower. Being, by that time, rather tired of
this kind of life, and having received new provocation from
the butcher, I throw the flower away, go out with the
butcher, and gloriously defeat him.

This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the
bear's grease in moderation, are the last marks I can dis-
cern, now, in my progress to seventeen.

CHAPTER XIX.

1 LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY.

I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when
day schooldays drew to an end, and the time came for my
leaving Doctor Strong's. I had been very happy there, I
had a great attachment for the Doctor, and I was eminent
and distinguished in that little world. For these reasons I
was sorry to go; but for other reasons, unsubstantial
enough, I was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at
my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young
man at his own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen
and done by that magnificent animal, and the wonderful
effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me
away. So powerful were these visionary considerations in
my boyish mind, that I seem, according to my present way
of thinking, to have left school without natural regret.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 273

The separatxon has not made the impression on me, that
other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt
about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not
momentous in my recollection. I suppose the opening
prospect confused me. I know that my juvenile experi-
ences went for little or nothing then; and that life was
more like a great fairy story, which I was just about to
begin to read, than anything else.

My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the
calling to which I should be devoted. For a year or more
I had endeavoured to find a satisfactory answer to her often-
repeated question, " What I would like to be? " But I had
no particular liking, that I could discover, for anything.
If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the
science of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing
expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant
voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered my-
self completely suited. But in the absence of any such
miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to
some pursuit that would not lie too heavily upon her purse ;
and to do my duty in it, whatever it might be.

Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a
meditative and sage demeanour. He never made a sugges-
tion but once ; and on that occasion (I don't know what put
it in his head), he suddenly proposed that I should be " a
brazier." My aunt received this proposal so very ungra-
ciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever after-
wards confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her
suggestions, and rattling his money.

"Trot, I tell you what, my dear," said my aunt, one
morning in the Christmas season when I left school; "as
this knotty point is still unsettled, and as we must not
make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, I think
we had better take a little breathing- time. In the mean-
while, you must try to look at it from a new point of view,
and not as a schoolboy."

"I will, aunt."

" It has occurred to me," pursued my aunt, "that a little
change, and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful,
in helping you to know your own mind, and form a cooler
judgment. Suppose you were to take a little journey now.
Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the coun -
try again, for instance, and see that — that out-of-the-way
18

274 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

woman with the savagest of names," said my aunt, rubbing
her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty
for being so called.

" Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best ! "

"Well," said my aunt, "that's lucky, for I should like
it too. But it's natural and rational that you should like
it. And I am very well persuaded that whatever you do,
Trot, will always be natural and rational."

"I hope so, aunt."

" Your sister, Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, " would
have been as natural and rational a girl as ever breathed.
You'll be worthy of her, won't you? "

" I hope I shall be worthy of you, aunt. That will be
enough for me."

" It's a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours
didn't live," said my aunt, looking at me approvingly,
"or she'd have been so vain of her boy by this time, that
her soft little head would have been completely turned, if
there was anything of it left to turn." (My aunt always
excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by trans-
ferring it in this way to my poor mother.) "Bless me,
Trotwood, how you do remind me of her ! "

" Pleasantly, I hope, aunt? " said I.

"He's as like her, Dick," said my aunt, emphatically,
"he's as like her, as she was that afternoon, before she
began to fret — bless my heart, he's as like her, as he can
look at me out of his two eyes ! "

" Is he indeed? " said Mr. Dick.

"And he's like David, too," said my aunt, decisively.

" He is very like David ! " said Mr. Dick.

"But what I want you to be, Trot," resumed my aunt*,
" — I don't mean physically, but morally; you are very
well physically — is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow,
with a will of your own. With resolution," said my aunt,
shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. " With
determination. With character, Trot — with strength of
character that is not to be influenced, except on good rea-
son, by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you
to be. That's what your father and mother might both
have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it."

I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.

" That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance
upon yourself, and to act for yourself," said my aunt "I

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 275

shall send you upon your trip, alone. I did ^;once|
of Mr. Dick's going with you; but, on second thoughts, 1
shall keeo him to take care of me." . _

M D ek, for a moment, looked a little disappointed;
uu til the honour and dignity of having to take .care ^o Mhe
most wonderful woman in the world, restored the sunshine

*° "dees,» said my aunt, "there's *e Memorial."

'• Oh certainly," said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, ' I intend,
Trotwoo l! to get that done immediately^ reaUy must be
done immediately! And then it will go in, yon know -and
then-." said Mr. Dick, after checking himself, and pans
tag a long time, "there'll be a pretty kettle of fish.

In pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, I was shortly
afterwards fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and
portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my •>£**£
d parting, my aunt gave me some good advice, and a good
^auTk sses; Ind said that as her object was that I should
STabout me, and should think a little, she would r om-
mend me to stay a few days m London, if I liked it, either
on mv way down into Suffolk, or m coming back. In a
Zl Iw- at liberty to do what I would, for three weeks
or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon
my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and look-
tag about me, and a pledge to write three tunes a week and

*fSS?£2S% nrst, that I might take leave of
S <mes and Mr. Wiekfield (my old room m whose house I
had not yet relinquished), and also of the good Doctor.
AgneTwas very glad to see me, and told me that the house
had not been like itself since I had left it. ^

« I am sure I am not like myself when I am away, said
I « I seem to want my right hand, when I miss you.
Though that's not saying much; for there's no hesdn. W
right hand, and no heart. Every one who knows you, con
suits with you, and is guided by you, Agnes

'•Every one who knows me, spoils me, I believe, sue

answered, smiling. , _.

•• No It's because vou are like no one else You are
so good, and so sweet-tempered. Jon have such a gentle
nature, and you are always right."

-You talk," said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh,
as she sat at work. « as if I were the late Miss Larkins

276 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Come! It's not fair to abuse my confidence," I an-
swered, reddening at the recollection of my blue enslaver.
" But I shall confide in you, just the same, Agnes. I can
never grow out of that. Whenever I fall into trouble, or
fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you'll let me — even
when I come to fall in love in earnest."

" Why, you have always been in earnest ! " said Agnes,
laughing again.

" Oh! that was as a child, or a schoolboy," said 1, laugh-
ing in my turn, not without being a little shamefaced.
" Times are altering now, and I suppose I shall be in a
terrible state of earnestness one day or other. My wonder
is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time,
Agnes."

Agnes laughed again, and shook her head.

" Oh, I know you are not ! " said I, " because if you had
been, you would have told me. Or at least — " for I saw
a faint blush in her face, " you would have let me find it
out for myself. But there is no one that I know of, who*
deserves to love you, Agnes. Some one of a nobler char-
acter, and more worthy altogether than anyone I have ever
seen here, must rise up, before I give my consent. In the
time to come, I shall have a wary eye on all admirers ; and
shall exact a great deal from the successful one, I assure you. "

We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest
and earnest, that had long grown naturally out of our famil-
iar relations, begun as mere children. But Agnes, now sud-
denly lifting up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a differ-
ent manner, said :

" Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you,
and that I may not have another opportunity of asking for
a long time, perhaps — something I would ask, I think, of
no one else. Have you observed any gradual alteration in
papa? "

I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she
had too. I must have shown as much, now, in my face ;
for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and I saw tears
in them.

" Tell me what it is," she said, in a low voice.

" I think — shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so
much? "

" Yes," she said.

" I think he does himself no good by the habit that has

OF DAVID COPPERFTELD. 277

increased upon him since I first came here. He is often
very nervous— or I fancy so."

" It is not fancy," said Agnes, shaking her head.

" His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes
look wild. I have remarked that at those times, and when
he is least like himself, he is most certain to be wanted on
some business."

" By Uriah," said Agnes.

" Yes ; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not hav
ing understood it, or of having shown his condition in
spite of himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next
day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he becomes
jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say,
Agnes, but in this state I saw him, only the other evening,
lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears like a
child."

Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet
speaking, and in a moment she had met her father at the
door of the room, and was hanging on his shoulder. The
expression of her face, as they both looked towards me, I
felt to be very touching. There was such deep fondness
for him, and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in
her beautiful look ; and there was such a fervent appeal to
me to deal tenderly by him, even in my inmost thoughts,
and to let no harsh construction find any place against him ;
she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet
so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be
so, too ; that nothing she could have said would have ex-
pressed more to me, or moved me more.

We were to drink tea at the Doctor's. We went there
at the usual hour ; and round the study-fireside found the
Doctor, and his young wife, and her mother. The Doctor,
who made as much of my going away as if I were going to
China, received me as an honoured guest; and called for
a *.og of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see
'the face of his old pupil reddening in the blaze.

"I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood's
stead, Wickfield," said the Doctor, warming his hands ; " I
am getting lazy, and want ease. I shall relinquish all my
yc.-mg people in another six months, and lead a quieter
life."

" You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor/
Mr. Wickfield answered.

278 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" But now I mean to do it," returned the Doctor. " My
first master will succeed me — I am in earnest at last — so
you'll soon have to arrange our contracts, and to bind us
firmly to them, like a couple of knaves."

"And to take care," said Mr. Wickfield, "that you're
not imposed on, eh? As you certainly would be, in any
contract you should make for yourself. Well! I am
ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my calling."

" I shall have nothing to think of then," said the Doctor,
with a smile, " but my Dictionary ; and this other contract-
bargain — Annie. "

As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea-
table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with
such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention
became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to
his thoughts.

"There is a post come in from India, I observe," he said,
after a short silence.

"By-the-by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!" said
the Doctor.

"Indeed?"

" Poor dear Jack ! " said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her
head. " That trying climate. Like living, they tell me, on
a sand- heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked
strong, but he wasn't. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit,
not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie,
my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your
cousin never was strong — not what can be called robust, you
know," said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking
round upon us generally — " from the time when my daugh-
ter and himself were children together, and walking about.
arm in arm, the livelong day."

Annie, thus addressed, made no reply.

"Do I gather from what you say, ma'am, that Mr. Mai
don is ill? " asked Mr. Wickfield.

" 111! " replied the Old Soldier. "My dear Sir, he;s all
sorts of things."

"Except well? " said Mr. Wickfield.

" Except well, indeed ! " said the Old Soldier. " He has
had dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers
and agues, and every kind of thing you can mention. As
to his liver," said the Old Soldier resignedly, "that, of
course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 279

"Does he say all this? " asked Mr. Wickfield.

" Say ? My dear Sir," returned Mrs. Markleham, shak-
ing her head and her fan, "you little know my poor Jack
Maldon when you ask that question. Say ? Not he.
You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first."

'•'Mama!" said Mrs. Strong.

"Annie, my dear," returned her mother, "once for all, I
must really beg that you will not interfere with me, unless
it is to confirm what I say. You know as well as I do,
that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the heels of
any number of wild horses — why should I confine myself
to four! I won't confine myself to four— eight, sixteen,
two-and-thirty, rather than say anything calculated to
overturn the Doctor's plans."

" Wickfield' s plans," said the Doctor, stroking his face,
and looking penitently at his adviser. " That is to say,
our joint plans for him. I said myself, abroad or at home. "

"And I said," added Mr. Wickfield gravely, "abroad.
I was the means of sending him abroad. It's my respon-
sibility."

" Oh ! Responsiblity ! " said the Old Soldier. " Every-
thing was done for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; every-
thing was done for the kindest and best, we know. But if
the dear fellow can't live there, he can't live there. And
if he can't live there, he'll die there, sooner than he'll
overturn the Doctor's plans. I know him," said the Old
Soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony,
"and I know he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the
Doctor's plans."

"Well, well, ma'am," said the Doctor cheerfully, "I am
not bigoted to my plans, and I can overturn them myself.
I can substitute some other plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon
comes home on account of ill health, he must not be allowed
to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more
suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country."

Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech
(which, I need not say, she had not at all expected or led
up to) that she could only tell the Doctor it was like him-
self, and go several times through that operation of kissing
the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it.
After which she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not
being more demonstrative when such kindnesses were
showered, for her sake, on her old playfellow : and enter-

280 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

fcained us with some particulars concerning other deserving
members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on
their deserving legs.

All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or
lifted up her eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his
glance upon her as she sat by his own daughter's side. It
appeared to me that he never thought of being observed by
any one ; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own
thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed.
He now asked what Mr. Jack Mai don had actually writteD
in reference to himself, and to whom he had written it?

" Why, here," said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from
the chimney-piece above the Doctor's head, "the dear fel-
low says to the Doctor himself— where is it? Oh! — 'I
am sorry to inform you that my health is suffering severely,
and that I fear I may be reduced to the necessity of return-
ing home for a time, as the only hope o± restoration.'
That's pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of
restoration! But Annie's letter is plainer tstill. Annie,
show me that letter again."

"Not now, mama," she pleaded in a low tone.

" My dear, you absolutely are, on some su .ejects, one of
the most ridiculous persons in the world/' returned her
mother, " and perhaps the most unnatural to the claims oi
your own family. We never should have heard of the
letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself.
Do you call that confidence, my love, towards Doctov
Strong? I am surprised. You ought to know better."

The letter was reluctantly produced ; and as I handed it
to the old lady, I saw how the unwilijig hand from which
I took it, trembled.

"Now let us see," said Mrs. M&ikleham, putting her
glass to her eye, "where the passage is. ' The remem-
brance of old times, my dearest Annie ' — and so forth — it's
not there. • The amiable old Proctor ' — who's he? Dear
me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and
how stupid I am! \ Doctor,' of ourse. Ah! amiable in-
deed ! " Here she left off, to kiss her fan again, and shake
it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid
satisfaction. "Now I have found it. ' You may not be
surprised to hear, Annie ' — no, to be sure, knowing that he
never was really strong; what did I say just now? — ' that
I have undergone so much in this distant place, as to have

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 281

decided to leave it at all hazards ; on sick leave, if I can ;
on total resignation, if that is not to be obtained. What I
have endnred, and do endure here, is insupportable.' And
but for the promptitude of that best of creatures," said
Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing the Doctor as before, and
refolding the letter, " it would be insupportable to me to
think of."

Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady
looked to him as if for his commentary on this intelligence ;
but sat severely silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground.
Long after the subject was dismissed, and other topics
occupied us, he remained so ; seldom raising his eyes, un-
less to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown,
upon the Doctor, or his wife, or both.

The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with
great sweetness and expression, and so did Mrs. Strong.
They sang together, and played duets together, and we had
quite a little concert. But I remarked two things : first,
that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was
quite herself, there was a blank between her and Mr. Wick1
field which separated them wholly from each other ; second-
ly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed to dislike the intimacy be-
tween her and Agnes, and to watch it with uneasiness. And
now, I must confess, the recollection of what I had seen
on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first began to
return upon me with a meaning it had never had, and to
trouble me. The innocent beauty of her face was not as
innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the natural
grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at
Agnes by her side, and thought how good and true Agnes
was, suspicions arose within me that it was an ill-assorted
friendship.

She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other
was so happy too, that they made the evening fly away as
if it were but an hour. It closed in an incident which i
well remember. They were taking leave of each other,
and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when
Mr. Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and
drew Agnes quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the
intervening time had been cancelled, and I were still stand-
ing in the doorway on the might of the departure, the ex-
pression of that night in the face of Mrs. Strong as it
confronted his.

282 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or
how impossible I found it, when I thought of her after-
wards, to separate her from this look, and remember her
face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted me when
I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor's roof with
a dark cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for
his grey head, was mingled with commiseration for his
faith in those who were treacherous to him, and with re-
sentment against those who injured him. The impending
shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had
no distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet
place where I had worked and played as a boy, and did it
a cr.iel wrong. I had no pleasure in thinking, any more,
of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees which remained
shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the
trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doc-
tor's Walk, and the congenial sound of the Cathedral bell
hovering above them all. It was as if the tranquil sanc-
tuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and
its peace and honour given to the winds.

But morning brought with it my parting from the old
house, which Agnes had filled with her influence ; and that
occupied my mind sufficiently I should be there again
soon, no doubt ; I might sleep again — perhaps often — in my
old room ; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone,
and the old time was past. I was heavier at heart when I
packed up such of my books and clothes as still remained
there to be sent to Dover, than I cared to show to Urian
Heep : who was so officious to help me, that I uncharitably
thought him mighty glad that I was going.

I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with
an indifferent show of being very manly, and took my seat
upon the box of the London coach. I was so softened and
forgiving, going through the town, that I had half a mind
to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five
shillings to drink. But he looked such a very obdurate
butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the shop,
and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the
loss of a front tooth which I had knocked out, that I thought
it best to make no advances.

The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got
fairly on the road, was to appear as old as possible to the
coachman, and to speak extremely gruff. The latter point

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.

283

I achieved at great personal inconvenience ; but I stuck to
it, because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing.

" You are going through, Sir ? " said the coachman.

"Yes, Willliam," I said, condescendingly (I knew him) ;
"lam going to London. I shall go down into Suffolk
afterwards."

" Shooting, Sir? " said the coachman.

He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at
that time of year, I was going down there whaling ; but I
felt complimented, too.

"I don't know," I said, pretending to be undecided.
* whether I shall take a shot or not."

" Birds is got wery shy, I'm told," said William.

u So I understand," said I.

" Is Suffolk your county, Sir ? " asked William.

"Yes," I said, with some importance. "Suffolk's my
county. "

"I'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there,'

said William.

I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to
uphold the institutions of my county, and to evince a famil-
iarity with them ; so I shook my head, as much as to say,
" I believe you ! "

"And the Punches," said William. "There' Seattle! A
Suffolk Punch, when he's a good 'un, is worth his weight
in gold. Did you ever breed any Suffolk Punches yourself,
Sir? "

"X— no," I said, "not exactly."

"Here's a gen'lm'n behind me, I'll pound it," said Wil-
liam, " as has bred 'em by wholesale."

The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very
anpromising squint, and a prominent chin, who had a tall
white hat on with a narrow flat brim, and whose close-
fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way up out-
Bide his legs from his boots to his hips. His chin was
cocked over the coachman's shoulder, so near to me, that
his breath quite tickled the back of my head; and as I
looked round at him. he leered at the leaders with the
eye with which he didn't squint, in a very knowing
manner.

" Ain't you? " said William.

" Ain't I what? " asked the gentleman behind.

"Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale? "

284 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"1 should think so," said the gentleman. "There ain't
no sort of orse that I ain't bred, and no sort. of dorg.
Orses and dorgs is some men's fancy. They're wittles and
drink to me — lodging, wife, and children — reading, writ-
ing, and 'rithmetic — snuff, tobacker, and sleep."

"That ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-
box, is it though? " said William in my ear, as he handled
the reins.

I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that
he should have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign
it.

< Well, if you don't mind, Sir," said William, "I think
it would be more correct."

I have always considered this as the first fall I had in
life. When I booked my place at the coach-office, I had
had "Box Seat" written against the entry, and had giveu
the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in a special
great-coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that distin-
guished eminence ; had glorified myself upon it a good deal ;
and had felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in
the very first stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man with
a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-
stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly
than a human being, while the horses were at a canter!

A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on
small, occasions, when it would have been better away, was
assuredly not stopped in its growth by this little incident
outside the Canterbury coach. It was in- vain to take refuge
in gruffness of speech. I spoke from the pit of my stomach
for the rest of the journey, but I felt completely extin-
guished, and dreadfully young.

It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting
up there, behind four horses : well educated, well dressed,
and with plenty of money in my pocket ; and to look out
for the places where I had slept on my weary journey. I
had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspic-
uous landmark on the road. When I looked down at the
tramps whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered
style of face turned up, I felt as if the tinker's blackened
hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. When we clat-
tered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I caught
a glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster
lived who had bought my jacket, I stretched my necK

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 285

eagerly to look for the place where I had sat, in the sun
and in the shade, waiting for my money. When we came,
at last, within a stage of London, and passed the veritable
Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with
a heavy hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful per-
mission to get down and thrash him, and let all the boys
out like so many caged sparrows.

We went to the Golden Cross, at Charing Cross, then a
mouldy sort of establishment in a close neighbourhood. A
waiter showed me into the coffee-room ; and a chambermaid
introduced me to my small bed-chamber, which smelt like
a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. I
was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood
in any awe of me at all : the chambermaid being utterly
indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the waiter
being familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperi-
ence.

"Well now," said the waiter, in a tone of confidence,
"what would you like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes
poultry in general : have a fowl ! "

I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn't in
the humour for a fowl.

"Ain't you!" said the waiter. "Young gentlemen is
generally tired of beef and mutton : have a weal cutlet ! "

I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to
suggest anything else.

"Do you care for taters? " said the waiter, with an insin-
uating smile, and his head on one side. " Young gentlemen
generally has been overdosed with taters."

I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal
cutlet and potatoes, and all things fitting ; and to inquire
at the bar if there were any letters for Trotwood Copper-
field, Esquire — which I knew there were not, and couldn't
be, but thought it manly to appear to expect.

He soon came back to say that there were none (at which
I was much surprised) and began to lay the cloth for my
dinner in a box by the fire. While he was so engaged, he
asked me what I would take with it ; and on my replying
"Half a pint of sherry," thought it a favourable opportun-
ity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the
stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. I
am of this opinion, because, while I was reading the news-
paper, I observed him behind a low wooden partition, which

286 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a num-
ber of those vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist
making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, 7
thought it flat ; and it certainly had more English crumbs
in it, than were to be expected in a foreign wine in any-
thing like a pure state ; but I was bashful enough to drink
it, and say nothing

Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I
infer that poisoning is not always disagreeable in some
stages of the process), I resolved to go to the play. It was
Covent Garden Theatre that I chose ; and there, from the
back of a centre box, I saw Julius Caesar and the new
Pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before
me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead
of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school,
was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled
reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon
me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the
smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scen-
ery, were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable re-
gions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street,
at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the
clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages,
to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling,
hackney-coach- jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable
world.

I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street
for a little while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth :
but the unceremonious pushing and hustling that I re-
ceived, soon recalled me to myself, and put me in the road
back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the glorious
vision all the way ; and where, after some porter and oys-
ters, I sat revolving it still, at past one o'clock, with my
eyes on the coffee-room fire.

I was so filled with the play, and with the past— for it
wtis, in a manner, like a shining transparency, through
which I saw my earlier life moving along — that I don't
know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young
man, dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have
reason to remember very well, became a real presence to
me But I recollect being conscious of his company with-
out having noticed his coming in — and my still sitting3
musing, over the coffee-room fire.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 237

At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the
sleepy waiter, who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was
twisting them, and hitting them, and putting them through
all kinds of contortions in his small pantry. In going to-
wards the door, I passed the person who had come in, and
saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked
again. He did not know me, but I knew him in a moment.

At another time I might have wanted the confidence or
the decision to speak to him, and might have put it off un-
til next day, and might have lost him. But, in the then
condition of my mind, where the play was still running
high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving of
my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast
so freshly and spontaneously, that I went up to him at
once, with a fast-beating heart, and said :

" Steerforth! won't you speak to me ? "

He looked at me — just as he used to look, sometimes —
but I saw no recognition in his face.

"You don't remember me, I am afraid," said I.

"My God!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It's little Cop-
perfield!"

I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go,
But for very shame, and the fear that it might displease
him, I could have held him round the neck and cried.

"I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steer-
forth, I am so overjoyed to see you! "

"And I am rejoiced to see you, too! " he said, shaking
my hands heartily. "Why, Copperfield, old boy, don't be
overpowered ! " And yet he was glad, too, I thought, to
see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me.

I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had
not been able to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of
it, and we sat down together, side by side.

"'Why, how do you come to be here?" said Steerforth,
clapping me on the shoulder.

" I came here by the Canterbury coach, to-day. I have
been adopted by an aunt down in that part of the country,
and have just finished my education there. How do you
come to be here, Steerforth? "

" Well, I am what they call an Oxford man," he re-
turned ; " that is to say, I get bored to death down there,
periodically — and I am on my way now to my mother's.
You're a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just

288 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered ic
the least ! "

"I knew you immediately/* I said; "but you are more
easily remembered. "

He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering
curls of his hair, and said gaily :

" Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives
a little way out of town ; and the roads being in a beastly
condition, and our house tedious enough, I remained here
to-night instead of going on. I have not been in town
half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grum-
bling away at the play. "

"I have been at the play, too," said I. "At Covent
Garden. What a delightful and magnificent entertainment,
Steerforth!"

Steerforth laughed heartily.

" — My dear young Davy," he said, clapping me on the
shoulder again, " you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the
field, at sunrise, is not fresher than you are ! I have been
at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a more miser-
able business. — Holloa, you Sir! "

This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very
attentive to our recognition, at a distance, and now came
forward deferentially.

" Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield? " said
Steerforth.

" Beg your pardon, Sir? "

" Where does he sleep? What's his number? You know
what I mean," said Steerforth.

"Well, Sir," said the waiter, with an apologetic air.
"Mr. Copperfield is at present in forty-four, Sir."

" And what the devil do you mean," retorted Steerforth,
"by putting Mr. Copperfield into a little loft over a
stable? "

"Why, you see we wasn't aware, Sir," returned the
waiter, still apologetically, "as Mr. Copperfield was any.
ways particular. We can give Mr. Copperfield seventy-
two, Sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, Sir."

"Of course it would be preferred," said Steerforth.
"And do it at once."

The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange.
Steerforth, very much amused at my having been put
into forty-four, laughed again, and clapped me on the shoul-

OF DAVID COPPERFlELD. 289

der again, and invited me to breakfast with him next morn-
ing at ten o'clock — an invitation I was only too proud and
happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our
candles and went up-stairs, where we parted with friendly
heartiness at his door, and where I found my new room a
great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty,
and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which
was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows
enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and
dreamed of ancient Kome, Steerforth, and friendship, until
the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway
underneath, made me dream of thunder and the gods.

CHAPTEE XX.

STEERFORTH'S HOME.

When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight
o'clock, and informed me that my shaving- water was out-
side, I felt severely the having no occasion for it, and
blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed too,
when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was
dressing; and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and
guilty air when I passed her on the staircase, as I was
going down to breakfast. I was so sensitively aware, in-
deed of being younger than I could have wished, that for
some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at
all, under the ignoble circumstances of the case ; but, hear-
ing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of the win-
dow at King Charles on horseback, surrounded by a maze
of hackney-coaches and looking anything but regal in a
Irizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admon-
ished by the waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me.

It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth
expecting me, but in a snug private apartment, red-curtained
and Turkey-carpeted, where the fire burnt bright, and a
fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a
clean cloth , and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire,
the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little
round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at
first, Steerforth being so self-vjossessed, and elegant, and
19

290 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

superior to me in all respects (age included) ; but his easy
patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at
home. I could not enough admire the change he had
wrought in the Golden Cross ; or compare the dull f orlorc
state I had held yesterday, with this morning's comfort and
this morning's entertainment. As to the waiter's famil-
iarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. He attended
on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes.

"Now, Copperfield," said Steerforth, when we were
alone, u I should like to hear what you are doing, and
where you are going, and all about you. I feel as if you
were my property."

Glowing with pleasure to find that he had still this
interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed the
little expedition that I had before me, and whither it
tended.

"As you are in no hurry, then," said Steerforth, ^eonie
home with me to Highgate. and stay a day or two. You
will be pleased with my mother — she is a little vain and
prosy about me, but that you can forgive her — and she
will be pleased with you."

" I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind
enough to say you are," I answered, smiling.

"Oh! " said Steerforth, "every one who likes me, has a
claim on her that is sure to be acknowledged."

•• Then I think I shall be a favourite," said I.

'•'Good!" said Steerforth. "Come and prove it. We
will go and see the lions for an hour or two — it's some-
thing to have a fresh fellow like you to show them to,
Copperfield — and then we'll journey out to Highgate by
the coach."

I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and
that I should wake presently in number forty four, to the
solitary box in the coffee-room and the familiar waiter
again. After I had written to my aunt and told her of my
fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and
my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney
chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other sights, and
took a walk through the Museum, where I could not help
observing how much Steerforth knew, on an infinite variety
of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to make
his knowledge.

" You'll take a high degree at college, Steerfortn," said

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 201

I, * if you have not done so already ; and they will have
good reason to be proud of you."

u I take a degree ! " cried Steerf orth. " Not I ! my dear
Daisy — will you mind my calling you Daisy? "

"Not at all!* said I.

"That's a good fellow! My dear Daisy," said Steer-
forth, laughing, " I have not the least desire or intention
to distinguish myself in that way. I have done quite suffi-
cient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy company
enough for myself, as I am."

" But the fame " I was beginning.

•'You romantic Daisy!" said Steerforth, laughing still
more heartily ; u why should I trouble myself, that a parcel
of heavy-headed fellows may gape and hold up their hands?
Let them do it at some other man. There's fame for him,
and he's welcome to it."

I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and
was glad to change the subject. Fortunately it was not
difficult to do, for Steerforth could always pass from one
subject to another with a carelessness and lightness that
were his own.

Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter
day wore away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-
coach stopped with us at an old brick house at Highgate on
the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, though not very
far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a hand-
some face, was in the doorway as we alighted ; and greeting
Steerforth as " My dearest James," folded him in her arms

To this lady he presented me as his mother, and she gave
me a stately welcome.

It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and
orderly. From the windows of my room I saw all London
lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and
there some lights twinkling through it. I had only time,
in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed
pieces of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth' s mother
when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons of ladies
with powdered hair and bodices, coming and going on the
walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered,
when I was called to dinner.

There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight
short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some
appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention:

292 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

perhaps because I had not expected to see her; perhaps
because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps
because of something really remarkable in her. She had
black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a
scar upon her lip. It was an old scar — I should rather call
it, seam, for it was not discoloured, and had healed years
ago — which had once cut through her mouth, downward
towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table,
except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had
altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about
thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married. She
was a little dilapidated — like a house — with having been so
long to let ; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good
looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting
fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes.

She was introduced as Miss Dartle and both Steerforth
and his mother called her Rosa. I found that she lived
there, and had been for a long time Mrs. Steerforth' s com-
panion. It appeared to me that she never said anything
she wanted to say, outright ; but hinted it, and made a great
deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs.
Steerforth observed, more in jest than earnest, that she
feared her son led but a wild life at college, Miss Dartle
put in thus :

" Oh, really ? You know how ignorant I am, and that I
only ask for information, but isn't it always so? I thought
that kind of life was on all hands understood to be — eh? "

" It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean
that, Rosa," Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness.

"Oh! Yes! That's very true," returned Miss Dartle.
"But isn't it, though? — I want to be put right, if I am
wrong — isn't it really? "

"Really what?" said Mrs. Steerforth.

"Oh! You mean it's riot/" returned Miss Dartle.
" Well, I'm very glad to hear it ! Now, I know what to do.
That's the advantage of asking. I shall never allow people
to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, and so
forth, in connexion with that life, any more."

"And you will be right," said Mrs. Steerforth. "My
son's tutor is a conscientious gentleman; and if I had not
implicit reliance on my son, I should have reliance on him."

"Should you?" said Miss Dartle. "Dear me! Con-
scientious, is he? Really «xinscier>tious, now? "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 293

Yes, I arn convinced of it," said Mrs. Steerforth.

"How very nice!" exclaimed Miss Dartle. "What a
comfort! Really conscientious? Then he's not— but of
course he can't be, if he's really conscientious. Well, I
shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from this time.
You can't think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know
for certain that he's really conscientious! "

Her own views of every question, and her correction of
everything that was said to which she was opposed, Miss
Dartle insinuated in the same way : sometimes, I could not
conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradic-
tion even of Steerforth. An instance happened before dinner
was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my inten-
tion of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad
I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with me ; and
explaining to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and
Mr. Peggotty's family, 1 teminded him of the boatman
whom he had seen at school.

" Oh ! That bluff fellow ! " said Steerforth. " He had a
son with him, hadn't he? "

"No. That was his nephew," I replied; "whom he
adopted, though, as a son. He has a very pretty little
niece too, whom he adopted as a daughter. In short, his
house (or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on dry land)
is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kind-
ness. You would be delighted to see that household."

" Should I? " said Steerforth. " Well, I think I should.
I must see what can be done. It would be worth a journey
—not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy —
to see that sort of people together, and to make one of 'em."

My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it
was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of
"that sort of people," that Miss Dartle, whose sparkling
eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again.

"Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?"
she said.

" Are they what? And are who what? " said Steerforth.

" That sort of people. — Are they really animals and clods,
and beings of another order? I want to know so much."

"Why, there's a pretty wide separation between them
and us," said Steerforth, with indifference. " They are not
to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their deli-
cacy is not to be shocked, or hurt very easily. They are

294 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wonderfully virtuous, I dare say — some people contend foi
that, at least; and I am sure I don't want to contradict
them —but they have not very fine natures, and they may
be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not
easily wounded."

"Really!" said Miss Dartle. "Well, I don't know,
now, when I have been better pleased than to hear that.
It's so consoling! It's such a delight to know that when
they suffer, they don't feel! Sometimes I have been quite
uneasy for that sort of people ; but now I shall just dismiss
the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my
doubts, I confess, but now they're cleared up. I didn't
know, and now I do know ; and that shows the advantage
of asking — don't it ? "

I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest,
or to draw Miss Dartle out ; and I expected him to say as
much when she was gone, and we two were sitting before
the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought of her.

" She is very clever, is she not ? " I asked.

"Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone," said
Steerforth, " and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own
face and figure these years past. She has worn herself
away by constant sharpening. She is all edge."

" What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip ! " I said.

Steerforth' s face fell, and he paused a moment.

"Why, the fact is," he returned, " —J did that."

" By an unfortunate accident ! "

" No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and
I threw a hammer at her. A promising young angel I
must have been ! "

I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a paiiifiu
theme, but that was useless now.

" She has borne the mark ever since, as you see," said
Steerforth; "and she'll bear it to her grave, if she ever
rests in one ; though I can hardly believe she will ever rest
anywhere. She was the motherless child of a sort of cousin
of my father's. He died one day. My mother, who was
then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She
has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the
interest of it every year, to add to the principal. There's
the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you."

" And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother? '
said I.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 295

" Humph ! " retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire.
" Some brothers are not loved over much ; and some love —
but help yourself, Copperfield! We'll drink the daisies of
the field, in compliment to you ; and the lilies of the valley
that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me —
the more shame for me ! " A moody smile that had over-
spread his features cleared off as he said this merrily, and
he was his own frank, winning self again.

I could not help glaneing at the scar with a painful in-
terest when we went in to tea. It was not long before I
observed that it was the most susceptible part of her face,
and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first,
and became a dull, lead-coloured £rtreak, lengthening out to
its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the
fire. There was litlte altercation between her and Steer-
forth about a cast of the dice at backgammon — when I
thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage ; and then
I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall.

It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth
devoted to her son. She seemed to be able to speak or
think about nothing else. She showed me his picture as an
infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair in it ; she
showed me his picture as he had been when I first knew
him ; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now.
All the letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a
cabinet near her own chair by the fire ; and she would have
read me some of them, and I should have been very glad
to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed hex
out of the design.

" It was at Mr. Creakle's, my son tells me, that you first
became acquainted," said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and 1
were talking at one table, while they played backgammon
at another. "Indeed, I recollect his speaking, at that
time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his
fancy there ; but your name, as you may suppose, has not
lived in my memory."

" He was very generous and noble to me in those days,
I assure you, ma'am," said I, " and I stood in need of such
a friend. I should have been quite crushed without him."

" He is always generous and noble," said Mrs. Steerforth,
proudly.

I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She
knew I did; for the stateliness of her manner already

296 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

abated toward me, exw.pt when she spoke in praise of him,
and* then her air was always lofty.

" Ix, was not a fit school generally for my son," said she;
y' far from it ; bnt there were particular circumstances to be
considered at the time, of more importance even than that
selection. My son's high spirit made it desirable that he
should be placed with some man who felt its superiority,
and would be content to bow himself before it; and we
found such a man there."

I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not
despise him the more for it, but thought it a redeeming
quality in him- -if he could be allowed any grace for not
resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth.

"My son's gveat capacity was tempted on, there, by a
feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride," the
iond lady went on to sa}r. " He would have risen against
•*11 constraint ; but he found himself the monarch of the
place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his
stition. It was like himself."

1 echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like
himself.

' ! So my son took, of his own will, and on no compul-
sion, to the course in which he can always, when it is his
pleasure, outstrip every competitor," she pursued. "My
son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that you were quite de-
voted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made
yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an
affected woman if I made any pretence of being surprised
by my son's inspiring such emotions; but I can not be in-
different to any one who is so sensible of his merit, and I
am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he
feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely
on his protection."

Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did
everything else. If I had seen her, first, at the board, I
should have fancied that her figure had got thin, and her
eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and no other in the
world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a
word of this, or lost a look of mine as I received it with fche
utmost pleasure, and, honoured by Mrs. Steerforth' s confi-
dence, felt older than I had done since I left Canterbury

When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of
glasses and decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 297

the fire, that he would seriously thiuk of going down into
the country with me. There was no hurry, he said; a
week hence would do ; and his mother hospitably said the
same. While we were talking, he more than once called
me Daisy ; which brought Miss Dartle out again.

"But really, Mr. Copperfield," she asked, "is it a nick-
name? And why does he give it you? Is it — eh? — be-
cause he thinks you young and innocent? I am so stupid
in these things."

I colored in replying that I believed it was.

"Oh!" said Miss Dartle. "Now I am glad to know
that ! I ask for information, and I am glad to know it.
He thinks you young and innocent; and so you are his
friend? Well, that's quite delightful ! "

She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth
retired too. Steerforth and I, after lingering for half an
hour over the fire, talking about Traddles and all the rest
of them at old Salem House, went up-stairs together.
Steerforth' s room was next to mine, and I went in to look
at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs,
cushions, and footstools, worked by his mother's hand, and
with no sort of thing omitted that could help to render it
complete. Finally, her handsome features looked down
on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were
even something to her that her likeness should watch him
while he slept.

I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this
time and the curtains drawn before the windows and round
the bed, giving it a very snug appearance. I sat down in
a great chair upon the hearth to meditate on my happiness ;
and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time,
when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at
me from above the chimney-piece.

It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling
look. The painter hadn't made the scar, but /made it;
and there it was, coming and going : now confined to the
upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and now showing the
whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I
had seen it when she was passionate.

I wondered peevishly why they couldn't put her any-
where else instead of quartering her on me. To get rid of
her, I undressed quickly, extinguished my light, and went
to bed But, as I fell asleep, I could not forget that she

298 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was still there looking, " Is it really, though? I want to
know ; " and when I awoke in the night, I found that 1
was uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams
whether it really was or not — without knowing what I
meant

CHAPTER XXI.

LITTLE EM'LY.

There was a servant in that house, a man who, I under
stood, was usually with Steerforth, and had come into his
service at the University, who was in appearance a pattern
of respectability. I believe there never existed in his
station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn,
soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant,
always at hand when wanted, and never near when not
wanted ; but his great claim to consideration was his re-
spectability. He had not a pliant face, he had rather a
stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair cling-
ing to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a pecu-
liar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he
seemed to use it oftener than any other man ; but every
peculiarity that he had he made respectable. If his nose
had been upside-down, he would have made that respec-
table. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of
respectability, and walked secure in it. It would have been
next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong, he
was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought
of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable.
To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would
have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of £
most respectable man. And of this, I noticed the women
servants in the household were so intuitively conscious,
that they always did such work themselves, and generally
while he read the paper by the pantry fire.

Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that
quality, as in every other he possessed, he only seemed to
be the more respectable. Even the fact that nc one knew
his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his respecta-
bility. Nothing could be objected against his surname
Littimer, by which he was known Peter might have been

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 299

hanged, or Tom transported; but Littinier was perfectly
respectable.

It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of
respectability in the abstract, but I felt particularly young
in this man's presence. How old he was himself, I could
not guess — and that again went to his credit on the same
score ; for in the calmness of respectability he might have
numbered fifty years as well as thirty.

Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was
up, :o bring me that reproachful shaving-water, and to put
3ut my clothes. When I undrew the curtains and looked
Dut of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature of respec-
tability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not
even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left
in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust
off my coat as he laid it down like a baby.

I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock
it was. He took out of his pocket the most respectable
hunting watch I ever saw, and preventing the spring with
his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face as if he
were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and
said, if I pleased, it was half -past eight.

"Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have
rested, Sir."

"Thank you," said I, "very well indeed. Is Mr. Steer-
forth quite well? "

"Thank you, Sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well."
Another of his characteristics, — no use of superlatives A
cool calm medium always.

" Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing
for you, Sir? The warning bell will ring at nine ; the fam-
ily take breakfast at half -past nine. "

" Nothing, I thank you. "

" I thank you, Sir, if you please ; " and with that, and
with, a little inclination of his head when he passed the
bedside, as an apology for correcting me, he went out,
shutting the door as delicately as if I had just fallen into
a sweet sleep on which my life depended.

Every morning we held exactly this conversation : never
any more, and never any less; and yet, invariably, how-
ever far I might have been lifted out of myself overnight,
and advanced towards maturer years, by Steerforth' s com-
panionship, or Mrs Steerforth' s confidence, or Miss Dartle'a

300 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man
I became, as our smaller poets sing "a boy again."

He got horses for us ; and Steerf orth, who knew every-
thing, gave me lessons in riding. He provided foils for
us, and Steerforth gave me lessons in fencing — gloves, and
I began, of the same master, to improve in boxing. It
gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find
me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to
show my want of skill before the respectable Littimer. I
had no reason to believe that Littimer understood such arts
himself ; he never led me to suppose anything of the kind,
by so much as the vibration of one of his respectable eye-
lashes ; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising^
I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mor-
tals.

I am particular about this man, because he made a par-
ticular effect on me at that time- and because of what took
place thereafter.

The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It
passed rapidly, as may be supposed, to one entranced as I
was ; and yet it gave me so many occasions for knowing
Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a thousand
respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him
for a much longer time. A dashing way he had of treating
me like a plaything, was more agreeable to me than any
behaviour he could have adopted. It reminded me of our
old acquaintance; it seemed the natural sequel of it; it
showed me that he was unchanged ; it relieved me of any
uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with
his, and measuring my claims upon his friendship by any
equal standard ; above all, it was a familiar, unrestrained,
affectionate demeanour that he used towards no one else.
As he had treated me at school differently from all the
rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike
any other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to
his heart than any other friend, and my own heart warmed
with attachment to him.

He made up his mind to go with me into the country,
and the day arrived for our departure. He had been doubt-
ful at first whether to take Littimer or not, but decided to
leave him at home. The respectable creature, satisfied with
his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaus on the
little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 301

were intended to defy the shocks of ages ; and received my
modestly proffered donation with perfect tranquillity.

We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with
many thanks on my part, and much kindness on the
devoted mother's. The last thing I saw was Littimer's un-
ruffled eye ; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent conviction
that I was very young indeed.

What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old famil-
iar places, I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down
by the Mail. I was so concerned, I recollect, even for the
honour of Yarmouth, that when Steerforth said, as we
drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as
he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way
kind of hole, I was highly pleased. We went to bed on
oar arrival (I observed a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in
connexion with my old friend the Dolphin as we passed
that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. Steer-
forth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about
the beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he
said, with half the boatmen in the place. Moreover he
had seen, in the distance, what he was sure must be the
identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming out
of the chimney ; and had had a great mind, he told me, to
walk in and swear he was myself grown out of knowl-
edge.

" When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy? "
he said. "I am at your disposal. Make your own ar-
rangements. "

"Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a
good time, Steerforth, when they are all sitting round the
fire. I should like you to see it when it's snug, it's such
a curious place."

" So be it!" returned Steerforth. "This evening."

" I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you
know," said I, delighted. "We must take them by sur-
prise."

"Oh, of course! It's no fun," said Steerforth, "unless
we take them by surprise. Let us see the natives in their
aboriginal condition."

"Though they are that sort of people that you men-
tioned," I returned.

"Aha! WTiat! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa,
do you? " he exclaimed with a quick look. ft Confound the

302 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

girl, I am half afraid of her. She's like a gobliu to me,
But never mind her. Now what are you going to do?
You are going to see your nurse, I suppose? "

" Why, yes," I said, "I must see Peggotty first of all."

" Well," replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. " Sup-
pose 1 deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours.
Is that long enough? "

I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get
through it in that time, but that he must come also ; for he
would find that his renown had preceded him, and that he
was almost as great a personage as I was.

"Fll come anywhere you like," said Steerforth, "01 do
anything you like. Tell me where to come to ; and in two
hours I'll produce myself in any state you please, senti-
mental or comical."

I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of
Mr. Barkis, carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere ; and, on
this understanding, went out alone. There was a sharp
bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea was crisp and
clear ; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much
warmth ; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so
fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that
I could have stopped the people in the streets and shaken
hands with them.

The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we
have only seen as children always do, I believe, when we
go back to them. But I had forgotten nothing in them,
and found nothing changed, until I came to Mr. Onier's
shop. ' Omer and Joram was now written up, where
Omer used to be; but the inscription, Draper, Tailor,
Haberdasher, Funeral Furnisher, &c, remained as it
was.

My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop-
door, after I had read these words from over the way, that
I went across the road and looked in. There was a pretty
woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little child in her
arms, while another little fellow clung to her apron. I had
no difficulty in recognising either Minnie or Minnie's chil-
dren. The glass door of the parlour was not open; but in
the workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old
tune playing, as if it had never left off.

"Is Mr. Omer at home?" said I, entering. "I should
like to see him, for a moment, if he is."

OF DAVID COBPERFIELD. 303

" Oh yes, Sir, he is at home," said Minnie ; " this weather
don't suit his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grand-
father l»

The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such
a lusty shout, that the sound of it made him bashful, and
he buried his face in her skirts, to her great admiration. I
heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming towards us, and
soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not much
older-looking, stood before me.

"Servant, Sir," said Mr. Omer. "What can I do for
you, Sir? "

"You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you
please," said I, putting out my own. " You were very
good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn' fc show
that I thought so."

" Was I though? " returned the old man. " I'm glad to
hear it, but I don't remember when. Are you sure it was
me?"

"Quite."

" I think my memory has got as short as my breath, "
said Mr. Omer, looking at me and shaking his head ; " for
I don't remember you."

"Don't you remember your coming to the coach to meet
me, and my having breakfast here, and our riding out to
Blunderstone together: you, and I, and Mrs. Joram, and
Mr. Joram too — who wasn't her husband then? "

" Why, Lord bless my soul ! " exclaimed Mr. Omer, after
being thrown by his surprise into a fit of coughing, " you
don't say so ! Minnie, my dear, you recollect? Dear me,
yes — the party was a lady, I think? "

"My mother," I rejoined.

"To — be — sure," said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat
with his forefinger, "and there was a little child too!
There was two parties. The little party was laid along
with the other party. Over at Blunderstone it was, of
course. Dear me ! And how have you been since? "

Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too.

"Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know," said Mr
Omer. " I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets
longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and
make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it? "

Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing,
and was assisted out of his fit by his daughter, who now

304 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

*

stood close beside us, dancing her smallest child on the
counter.

" Dear me ! " said Mr. Omer. " Yes, to be sure. Two
parties! Why, in that very ride, if you'll believe me, the
day was named for my Minnie to marry Joram, ' Do name
it, Sir,' says Joram. ' Yes, do, father,' says Minnie. And
now he's come into the business. And look here! The
youngest! "

Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her
temples, as her father put one of his fat fingers into the
hand of the child she was dancing on the counter.

"Two parties, of course!" said Mr. Omer, nodding his
head retrospectively. "Ex-actly so! And Joram' s at
work, at this minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not
this measurement " — the measurement of the dancing child
upon the counter — " by a good two inches. Will you take
something? "

I thanked him, but declined.

"Let me see," said Mr. Omer. "Barkis's the carrier's
wife — Peggotty's the boatman's sister — she had something
to do with your family? She was in service there, sure? "

My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfac-
tion.

"I believe my breath will get long next, my memory's
getting so much so," said Mr. Omer. "Well, Sir, we've
got a young relation of hers here, under articles to us, that
has as elegant a taste in the dressmaking business — I as-
sure you I don't believe there's a duchess in England can
touch her."

"Kot little Eni'ly? " said I, involuntarily.

"Em'ly's her name," said Mr. Omer, "and she's little
too. But if you'll believe me, she has such a face of her
own that half the women in this town are mad against her."

"Nonsense, father! " cried Minnie.

"My dear," said Mr. Omer, "I don't say it's the case
with you, " winking at me, " but I say that half the women
in Yarmouth — ah! and in five mile round — are mad against
that girl."

"Then she should have kept to her own station in life,
father," said Minnie, "and not have given them any hold
to talk about her, and then they couldn't have done it."

"Couldn't have done it, my dear! " retorted Mr. Omer.
"Couldn't have done it! Is that your knowledge of

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 305

life? What is there that any woman couldn't do, that she
shouldn't do— especially on the subject of another woman's
good looks? "

I really thought it was all over wirh Mr. Oiner, after he
had uttered this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that
extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it
with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head
go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches,
with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come
quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length,
however, he got better, though he still panted hard, and
was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit on the stool of
the shop -desk.

" You see, " he said, wiping his head, and breathing with
difficulty, " she hasn't taken much to any companions here;
she hasn't taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and
friends, not to mention sweethearts. In consequence, an
ill-natured story got about, that Em' ly wanted to be a lady.
Now, my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally
on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if
she was a lady she would like to do so and so for her uncle
— don't you see? — and buy him such and such fine things."

"I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me," I
returned eagerly, "when we were both children."

Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. " Just
so. Then out of a very little, she could dress herself, you
see, better than most others could out of a deal, and that
made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was rather what
might be called wayward — I'll go so far as to say what I
should call wayward myself," said Mr. Omer — "didn't
know her own mind quite — a little spoiled — and couldn't,
at first, exactly bind herself down. No more than that
was ever said against her, Minnie? "

"No, father," said Mrs. Joram. "That's the worst, I
believe."

" So when she got a situation," said Mr. Omer, "to keep
a fractious old lady company, they didn't very well agree,
and she didn't stop. At last she came here, apprenticed
for three years. Nearly two of 'em are over, and she has
been as good a girl as ever was Worth any six ! Minnie
is she worth any six, now? n

"Yes, father," replied Minnie. "Never say /detracted
from her ! "
20

306 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Very good, " said Mr. Omer. "That's right. And so,
young gentleman," he added, after a few moments' further
rubbing of his chin, " that you may not consider me long-
winded as well as short-breathed, I believe that's all about
it."

As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of
Ern'ly, I had no doubt that she was near. On my asking
now, if that were not so, Mr. Omer nodded yes, and nodded
towards the door of the parlour. My hurried inquiry if I
might peep in, was answered with a free permission ; and,
looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work.
I saw her, a most beautiful little creature, with the cloud-
less blue eyes, that had looked into my childish heart,
turned laughingly upon another child of Minnie's who was
playing near her ; with enough of wilfulness in her bright
face to justify what I had heard .; with much of the old
capricious coyness lurking in it ; but with nothing in her
pretty looks, I am sure, but what was meant for goodness
and for happiness, and what was on a good and happy
course.

The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had
left off — alas ! it was the tune that never does leave off —
was beating, softly, all the while.

" Wouldn't you like to step in," said Mr. Omer, "and
speak to her ? Walk in and speak to her, Sir ! Make
yourself at home ! "

I was too bashful to do so then — I was afraid of confus-
ing her, and I was no less afraid of confusing myself : but
I informed myself of the hour at which she left of an even-
ing, in order that our visit might be timed accordingly ; and
taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and her
little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty's.

Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The
moment I knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me
what I pleased to want. I looked at her with a smile, but
she gave me no smile in return. I had never ceased to
write to her, but it must have been seven years since we
had met.

"Is Mr. "Barkis at home, ma'am?" I said, feigning to
speak roughly to her.

"He's at home, Sir," returned Peggotty, "but he's bad
abed with the rheumatics."

"Don't he go over to Blunderstone now? " T asked.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 307

"When he's well, lie do," she answered.

"Do you ever go there, Mrs. Barkis ? "

She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick
movement of her hands towards each other.

': Because I want to ask a question about a house there,
that they call the — what is it?— the Rookery," said I.

She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an
undecided frightened way, as if to keep me off.

" Peggotty ! " I cried to her.

She cried, " My darling boy \ " and we both burst into
tears, and were locked in one another's arms.

What extravagances she committed ; what laughing and
crying over me; what pride she showed, what joy, what
sorrow that she whose pride and joy I might have been,
could never hold me in a fond embrace ; I have not the
heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it
was young in me to respond to her emotions. I had never
laughed and cried in all my life, I dare say — not even to
her— more freely than I did that morning."

" Barkis will be so glad, " said Peggotty, wiping her eyes
with her apron, " that it'll do him more good than pints of
liniment. May I go and tell him you are here? Will you
come up and see him, my dear? "

Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of
the room as easily as she meant to, for as often as she got
to the door and looked round at me, she came back again
to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder.
At last, to make the matter easier, I went up-stairs with
her ; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said
a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself be-
fore that invalid.

He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too
rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to
shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which I did
most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed,
he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was
driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay
in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception,
that he seemed to be nothing but a face — like a conven-
tional cherubim — he looked the queerest object I ever be-
held.

" What name was it as I wrote up in the cart, Sir? " said
M" Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile.

308 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Ah ! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that
matter, hadn't we? "

" I was willin' a long time, Sir? " said Mr. Barkis.

" A long time," said I.

"And I don't regret it," said Mr. Barkis. "Do you
remember what you told me once, about her making all the
apple parsties and doing all the cooking? "

" Yes, very well," I returned.

"It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, "as turnips is. It
was as true," said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which
was his only means of emphasis, " as taxes is. And noth-
ing's truer than them."

Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent
to this result of his reflections in bed; and I gave it.

" Nothing's truer than them," repeated Mr. Barkis; "a
man as poor as I am finds that out in his mind when he's
laid up. I'm a very poor man, Sir."

" I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis."

"A very poor man, indeed I am," said Mr. Barkis.

Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under
the bed-clothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp
took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of
the bed. After some poking about with this instrument,
in the course of which his face assumed a variety of dis-
tracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an
end of which had been visible to me all the time. Then
his face became composed.

"Old clothes," said Mr. Barkis.

"Oh!" said I.

"I wish it was Money, Sir," said Mr. Barkis.

"I wish it was, indeed," said I.

"But it ain't," said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes
as wide as he possibly could.

I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis,
turning his eyes more gently to his wife, said :

"She's the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis.
All the praise that any one can give to C. P. Barkis, she
deserves, and more! My dear, you'll get a dinner to-day,
for company; something good to eat and drink, will you? *

I should have protested against this unnecessary demon-
stration in my honour, but that I saw Peggotty, on the
opposite side of the bed, extremely anxious I should not.
So I held my peace.

OF DAVID COPPERPIELD. 309

91 1 have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my
dear," said Mr. Barkis, " but I'm a little tired. If you and
Mr. David will leave me for a short nap, I'll try and find
it when I wake."

We left the room, in compliance with this request.
When we got outside the door, Peggotty informed me that
Mr. Barkis, being now " a little nearer " than he used to
be, always resorted to this same device before producing a
single coin from his store ; and that he endured unheard-of
agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from
that unlucky box. In effect, we presently heard him utter-
ing suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this
magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while
Peggotty' s eyes were full of compassion for him, she said
his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better
not to check it. So he groaned on, until he had got into
bed again, suffering, I have no doubt, a martyrdom; and
then called us in, pretending to have just woke up from a
refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his
pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us,
and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box,
appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him for all his
tortures.

I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth's arrival, and it was
not long before he came. I am persuaded she knew no
difference between his having been a personal benefactor of
hers and a kind friend to me, and that she would have re-
ceived him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any
case. But his easy, spirited good-humour; his genial man-
ner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting him-
self to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he
cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's
heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His
manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through
all these causes combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind
of adoration for him before he left the house that night.

He stayed there with me to dirmer — if I were to say will-
ingly, I should not half express how readily and gaily. He
went into Mr. Barkis' s room like light and air, brightening
and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. There
was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he
did ; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seem-
ing impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything

310 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable,
that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance.

We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of
Martyrs, unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the
desk as of old, and where I now turned over its terrific pic-
tures, remembering the old sensations they had awaken3d,
but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she
called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of
her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as ]ook
at Steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case

"Of course," he said. "You'll sleep here, while we
stay, and I shall sleep at the hotel."

" But to bring you so far," I returned, " and to separate,
seems bad companionship, Steerforth."

" Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally
belong! " he said. "What is 'seems/ compared to that! "
It was settled at once.

He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last,
until we started forth, at eight o'clock, for Mr. Peggotty' s
boat. Indeed, they were more and more brightly exhibited
as the hours went on ; for I thought even then, and I have
no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his de-
termination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of
perception, and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him.
If any one had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant
game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the
employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of
superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning
what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away
— I say, if any one had told me such a lie that night, I
wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation
would have found a vent!

Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of
the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which
I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands, towards
the old boat; the wind sighing around us even more
mournfully than it had sighed and moaned upon the night
when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty' s door.

"This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not? "

"Dismal enough in the dark," he said; "and the sea
roars as if it were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where
I see a light yonder? "

"That's the boat." said 1

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 311

"And it's the same I saw this morning," he returned.
•I came straight to it, by instinct, I suppose."

We said no more as we approached the light, but ma^
softly for the door. I laid my hand upon the latch ; and
whispering Steerforth to keep close to me, went in.

A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside,
and, at the moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands :
which latter noise, I was surprised to see, proceeded from
the generally disconsolate Mrs. Gunmiidge. But Mrs.
Gummidge was not the only person there who was un-
usually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with
uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might ,
held his rough arms wide open, as if for little Em'ly to run
into them ; Ham, with a mixed expression in his face of
admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness
that sat upon him very well, held little Em'ly by the hand,
as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty ; little Em'ly
herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peg-
gotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped
by our entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of
springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty' s embrace.
In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment
of our passing from the dark cold night into the warm
light room, this was the way in which they were all em-
ployed: Mrs. Gummidge in the background, clapping her
hands like a madwoman.

The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our
going in, that one might have doubted whether it had ever
been. I was in the midst of the astonished family, face
to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my hand to
him, when Ham shouted:

" Mas'r Davy! It's Mas'r Davy ! "

In a moment we were all shakiug hands with one another,
and asking one another how we did, and telling one another
how glad we were to meet, and all talking at once. Mr.
Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see us, that he did
not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again
shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then
with me, and then rufiiing his shaggy hair all over his
head, and laughing with such glee and triumph, that it
was a treat to see him.

"Why, that you two g^nt'lmen — gent'lmen growed —
should come to this here roof to-night, of all nights in my

312 PERSONAL HISTORY ANL> EXPERIENCE

life," said Mr. Peggotty, " is such a thing as never happened
afore, I do rightly believe ! Em'ly, my darling, come here !
Come here, my little witch ! There's Mas'r Davy's friend,
my dear! There's the gent'lman as you've heerd on,
Em'ly. He comes to see you, along with Mas'r Davy, on
the brightest night of your uncle's life as ever was or will
be, Gorm the t'other one, and horroar for it! "

After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with ex-
traordinary animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one
of his large hands rapturously on each side of his niece's
face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle pride
and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand
had been a lady's. Then he let her go ; and as she ran into
the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon
us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satis-
faction.

" If you two gent'lmen — gent'lmen growed now, and such
gent'lmen " said Mr. Peggotty.

" So th' are, so th' are ! " cried Ham. " Well said ! So
th' are. Mas'r Daw bor — gent'bnen growed — so th' are! "

"If you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed," said Mr.
Peggotty, " don't ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind,
when you understand matters, I'll arks your pardon.
Em'ly, my dear! — She knows I'm a going to tell," here his
delight broke out again, " and has made off. Would you
be so good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute? "

Mrs. G-unimidge nodded and disappeared.

"If this ain't," said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among
us by the fire, " the brightest night o' my life, I'm a shell-
fish— biled too — and more I can't say. This here little
Em'ly, Sir," in a low voice to Steerforth, — "her as you
see a blushing here just now "

Steerforth only nodded ; but with such a pleased expres-
sion of interest, and of participation in Mr. Peggotty' s
Ceelings, that the latter answered him as if he had spoken.

" To be sure," said Mr. Peggotty, " that's her, and so she
is. Thank'ee, Sir."

Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have
said so too.

"This here little Em'ly of ours," said Mr. Peggotty,
"has been, in our house, what I suppose (I'm a ignorant
man, but that's my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed
*reetur can be in a house. She ain't my child; I never

OF DAVID COPPERFIELv. 313

had one; but I couldn't love her more. You understand!
I couldn't doit!"

"I quite understand," said Steerforth.

"I know you do, Sir," returned Mr. Peggotty, "anc
thank" ee again. Mas'r Davy, he can remember what she
was; you may judge for your own self what she is: but
neither of you can't fully know what she has been, is, and
will be, to my loving 'art. I am rough, Sir," said Mr
Peggotty, " I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine ; but no one>
unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know* I think, Vnat
our little Em'ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves," sink-
ing his voice lower yet, "that woman's name ain't Missis
Gumrnidge neither, though she has a world of merits."

Mr. Peggotty ruined his hair again with both hands; as
a further preparation for what he was going to say, and
went on, with a hand upon each of his knees :

"There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly,
from the time when her father was drownded ; as had seen
her constant ; when a babby, when a young gal, when a
woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn't,"
said Mr. Peggotty, " something o' my own build — rough — ■
a good deal o' the sou' -wester in him — wery salt — but, on
the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his 'art in the right
place."

I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like
the extent to which he sat grinning at us now.

" What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do," said
Mr. Peggotty, with his face one high moon of enjoyment,
"but he loses that there 'art of his to our little Em'ly.
He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' sarvant to
her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles,
and in the long run he makes it clear to me wot's amiss.
Now I could wish myself, you see, that our little Em'ly
was in a fair way of being married. I could wish to see
her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest man as had a
right to defend her. I don't know how long I may live, or
how soon I may die ; but I knew that if I was capsized, any
night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Koads here, and was
to see the town-lights shining for the last time over the
rollers as I couldn't make no head aginst, I could go down
quieter for thinking *. There's a man ashore there, iron-true
to my little Em'ly, God bless her, and no wrong can touch
mj Em'ly while so be as that man lives ' "

314 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, wave 1 his right
arm, as if he were waving it at the town-lights for the last
time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he
caught, proceeded as before :

"Well! I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He's big
enough, but he's bashfuller than a little 'un, and he don't
like. So / speak. < What ! Him ? ' says Em'ly. * Him
that I've know'd so intimate so many years, and like so
much! Oh, uncle! I never can have him. He's such a
good fellow ! ' I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to
her than ' My dear, you're right to speak out, you're to
choose for yourself, you're as free as a little bird.' Then
3 aways to him, and says, ' I wish it could have been so,
but it can't. But you can both be as you was, and wot I
say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.' He
says to me, a shaking of my hand, ' I will ! ' he says. And
he was — honourable and manful — for two year going on,
and we was just the same at home here as afore."

Mr. Peggotty' s face, which had varied in its expression
with the various stages of his narrative, now resumed all
its former triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my
knee and a hand upon Steerforth's (previously wetting
them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and
divided the following speech between us :

" All of a sudden, one evening — as it might be to-night —
comes little Em'ly from her work, and him with her!
There ain't so much in that, you'll say. No, because he
takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore
dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, he takes
hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, Look
here ! This is to be my little wife ! ' And she says, half
bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a cry-
ing, 'Yes, uncle! If you please.' — If I please!' cried
Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea ;
' Lord, as if I should do anythink else ! — ' If you please, I
am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll
be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he's a dear,
good fellow ! ' Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her
hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder's
out!" said Mr. Peggotty— " lrou come in! It took place
this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry
her, the minute she's out of her time."

Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 315

Peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of
confidence and friendship ; but feeling called upon to say
something to us, he said, with much faltering and great
difficulty :

" She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy — when
you first come — when I thought what she'd grow up to be.
I see her grow up— gent'lmen — like a flower. I'd lay
down my life for her — Mas'r Davy — Oh! most content and
cheerful! She's more to me— gent'lmen— than— she's all
to me that ever I can want, and more than ever I — thau
ever I could say. I — I love her true. There ain't a gen-
t'lman in all the land — nor yet sailing upon all the sea—
that can love his lady more than I love her, though there's
many a common man — would say better — what he meant. n

I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham
was now, trembling in the strength of what he felt for the
pretty little creature who had won his heart. I thought
the simple confidence reposed in us by Mr. Peggotty and
by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected by the
story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced
by the recollections of my childhood, I don't know.
Whether I had come there with any lingering fancy that
I was still to love little Em'ly, I don't know. I know
that I was filled with pleasure by all this ; but, at first,
with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little
would have changed to pain.

Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the pre-
vailing chord among them with any skill, I should have
made a poor hand of it. But it depended upon Steerf orth ;
and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we
were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be.

"Mr. Peggotty," he said, "you are a thoroughly good
fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night.
My hand upon it! Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My
hand upon that, too ! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a
brisk one ! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your
gentle niece to come back (for whom I vacate this seat in
the corner), I shall go. Any gap at your fireside on such
a night— such a gap least of all — I wouldn't make, for thQ
wealth of the Indies ! "

So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch iittlt
Em'ly. At first, little Em'ly didn't like to come, and then
Ham went. Presently they brought her to the fireside, very

*316 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE,

much confused, and very shy, — but she soon became more
assured when she found how gently and respectfully Steer-
forth spoke to her ; how skilfully he avoided anything that
would embarrass her ; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of
boats, and ships, and tides, and fish ; how he referred to
me about the time when he had seen Mr. Peggotty at Salem
House ; how delighted he was with the boat and all belong-
ing to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he
brought us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were
all talking away without any reserve.

Ein'ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked,
and listened, and her face got animated, and she was charm-
ing. Steerforth told a story of -a dismal shipwreck (which
arose out of his talk with Mr, Peggotty), as if he saw it all
before him — and little Em'ly's eyes were fastened on him
all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry ad-
venture of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety
as if the narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us — and
little Em'ly laughed until the boat rang with the musical
sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in irresistible
sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted.
He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, " When the
stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow ; " and he sang a
sailor's song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that
I could have almost fancied that the real wind creeping
sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through
our unbroken silence, was there to listen.

As to Mrs. G-uininidge, he roused that victim of despond-
ency with a success never attained by anyone else (so Mr.
Peggotty informed me), since the decease of the old one.
He left her so little leisure for being miserable, that she
said next day she thought she must have been bewitched.

But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, 01
the conversation. When little Em'ly grew more coura-
geous, and talked (but still bashfully) across the fire to me,
of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells
and pebbJ^s ; and when I asked her if she recollected how
I used to oe devoted to her ; and when we both laughed and
reddened, casting these looks back on the pleasant old
times, so unreal to look at now ; he was silent and atten-
tive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this time,
and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little
eomer by the fire— Ham beside her, where I used to sit.

Ob DAVID COPPERFIELD. 317

I coui^ not satisfy inyseif whether it was in her own little
tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that
she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him ; but I
observed that she did so, all the evening.

As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took
our leave. We had had some biscuit and dried fish for
supper, and Steerforth had produced from his pocket a
full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men,
now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily ;
and as they all stood crowded round the door to light us as
far as they could upon our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes
of little Em'ly peeping after us, from behind Ham, and
heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we
went.

" A most engaging little beauty ! " said Steerforth, taking
my arm. " Well ! It's a quaint place, and they are quaint
company, and it's quite anew sensation to mix with them."

"How fortunate we are, too," I returned, "to have ar-
rived to witness their happiness in that intended marriage !
I never saw people so happy. How delightful to see it, and
:o be made the sharers in their honest joy, as we have
been ; "

" That's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl ; isn't
he?" said Steerforth.

He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that
I felt a shock in this unexpected and cold reply. But turn-
ing quickly upon him, and seeing a laugh in his eyes, I
answered, much relieved :

"Ah, Steerforth! It's well for you to joke about the
poor ! You may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide
your sympathies in jest from me, but I know better. When
I see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely
you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or
humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not
a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can
be indifferent to you. And I admire and love you for it,
Steerforth, twenty times the more ! "

He stopped, and looking in my face, said, u Daisy, I be-
lieve you are in earnest, and are good. I wish we all
were ! " Next moment he was gaily singing Mr. Peggotty's
song, as we walked at a round pace back to Yarmouth-

318 PERSONAL HISTOUY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER XXIL

SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPUS.

Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in
that part of the country. We were very much together, I
need net say ; but occasionally we were asunder for some
hours a£ a time. He was a good sailor, and I was but an
indifferent one ; and when he went out boating with Mr.
Peggotty, which was a favourite amusement of his, I
generally remained ashore. My occupation of Peggotty' s
spare room put a constraint upon me, from which he was
free : for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr.
Barkis all day, I did not like to remain out late at night;
whereas Steerforth, lying at the Inn, had nothing to con-
sult but his own humour. Thus it came about, that I
heard of his making little treats for the fishermen at Mr.
Peggotty' s house of call, "The Willing Mind," after I was
in bed, and of his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen's
clothes, whole moonlight nights, and coming back when
the morning tide was at flood. By this time, however, I
knew that his restless nature and bold spirits delighted to
find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other
means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him ;
so none of his proceedings surprised me.

Another cause of our being sometimes apart was, that I
had naturally an interest ingoing over to Blunderstone, and
revisiting the old familiar scenes of my childhood ; while
Steerforth, after being there once, had naturally no great
interest in going there again. Hence, on three or four
days that I can at once recall, we went our several ways
after an early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I
had no idea how he employed his time in the interval, be-
yond a general knowledge that he was very popular in the
place, and had twenty ™eans of actively diverting himse,2
where another man mignc not have fcvid one.

For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrim-
ages was to recall every yard of the old road as I went
along it, and to haunt the old spots, of which I never tired

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 319

I haunted thein, as my meraoiy had often done, and lingered
among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I
was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my
parents lay — on which I had looked out, when it was my
father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion,
and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened
to receive my pretty mother and her baby — the grave which
Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and
made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a
little off the churchyard path, in a quiet corner, not so far
removed but I could read the names upon the stone as I
walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the church-bell
when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to
me, My reflections at these times were always associated
with the figure I was to make in life, and the distinguished
things I was to do. My echoing footsteps went to no other
time, but were as constant to that as if I had come home to
build my castles in the air at a living mother's side.

There were great changes in my old home. The ragged
nests, so long deserted by the rooks, were gone ; and the
trees were lopped and topped out of their remembered
shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the windows
of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a
poor lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of
him. He was always sitting at my little window, looking
out into the churchyard ; and I wondered whether his ram-
bling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies that used
to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of
that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the
sheep quietly feeding in the light of the rising sun.

Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone
to South America, and the rain had made its way through
the roof of their empty house, and stained the outer walls.
Mr Chillip was married again to a tall, raw-boned, high-
nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a
heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring
eves, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it
had ever been born.

It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure
that I used to linger about my native place, until the red-
dening winter sun admonished me that it was time to start
on my returning walk. But, when the place was left be-
hind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily

320 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to
think of having been there. So it was, though in a softened
degree, when I went to my neat room at night ; and, turn-
ing over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always
there, upon a little table), remembered with a grateful heart
how blest I was in having such a friend as Steerforth, such
a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I had
lost as my excellent and generous aunt.

My nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these
long walks, was by a ferry. It landed me on the flat be-
tween the town and the sea, which I could make straight
across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by the
high road. Mr. Peggotty' s house being on that waste-place,
and not a hundred yards out of my tract, I always looked
in as I went by. Steerforth was pretty sure to be there ex-
pecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air
and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town.

One dark evening, when I was later than usual — for I
had, that day, been making my parting visit to Blunder-
stone, as we were now about to return home — I found him
alone in Mr. Peggotty' s house, sitting thoughtfully before
the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he
was quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he
might easily have been if he had been less absorbed, for
footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy ground outside ; but
even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was standing close
to him, looking at him ; and still, with a heavy brow, he
was lost in his meditations.

He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his
shoulder, that he made me start too.

"You come upon me," he said, almost angrily, "like a
reproachful ghost ! "

"I was obliged to announce myself somehow, " I replied.
Have I called you down from the stars? "

"No," he answered. "No."

" Up from anywhere, then? " said I, taking my seac near
him.

" I was looking at the pictures in the fire," he returned.

" But you are spoiling them for me, " said I, as he stirred
it quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it
a train of red-hot sparks that went careering up the little
chimney, and roaring out into the air.

"You would not have seen them," he returned. "I de-

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 321

test this mongrel time, neither day nor night. How late
you are! Where have you been? "

44 1 have been taking leave of my usual walk," said I.

44 And I have been sitting here,5' said Steerforth, glancing
round the room, " thinking that all the people we found so
glad on the night of our coming down, might— to judge
from the present wasted air of the place — be dispersed, or
dead, or come to I don't know what harm. David, I wish
to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty
years ! "

" My dear Steerforth, what is the matter? "

"I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!" he
exclaimed. " I wish with all my soul I could guide myself
better!"

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite
amazed me. He was more unlike himself than I could have
supposed possible.

" It would be better to be this poor Per/gotty, or his lout
of a nephew," he said, getting up and leaning moodily
against the chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire,
44 than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times
wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in
this Devil's bark of a boat, within the last half-hour! "

I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at
first I could only observe him in silence, as he stood lean-
ing his head upon his hand, and looking gloomily down at
the fire. At length I begged him, with all the earnestness
I felt, to tell me what had occurred co cross him so unusu-
ally, and to let me sympathise with him, if I could not hope
to advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to
laugh — fretfully at first, but soon with returning gaiety.

"Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing!" he replied. "I
told you, at the inn in London, I am heavy company for
myself, sometimes. I have been a nightmare to myself,
just now — must have had one, I think. At odd dull times
nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognised foi
Avhat they are. I believe I have been confounding myself
with the bad boy who ' didn't care,' and became food foi
lions— a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose.
What old women call the horrors, have been creeping over
me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself."

"You are afraid of nothing else, I think," said I.

"Perhaps not, and yet mav have enough to be afraid of
21

322 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

too/' he answered. "Well! So it goes by! I am not
about to be hipped again, David ; but I tell you, my good
fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me
(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judi-
,'cious father! "

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw
it express such a dark kind of earnestness as when he said
these words, with his glance bent on the fire.

" So much for that ! " he said, making as If he tossed
something light into the air, with his hand.

" ' Why, being gone, I am a man again,'

like Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Mac
beth-like) broken up the feast with most admired disorder,
Daisy. "

" But where are they all, I wonder ! " said I.

"God knows," said Steerforth. "After strolling to the
ferry looking for you, I strolled in here and found the place
deserted. That set me thinking, and you found me think-
ing. "

The advent of Mrs. Gum midge with a basket, explained
how the house had happened to be empty. She had hur-
ried out to buy something that was needed, against Mr.
Peggotty's return with the tide ; and had left the door open
in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, with whom
it was an early night, should come home while she was
gone. Steerforth, after very much improving Mrs. Gum-
midge's spirits by a cheerful salutation and a jocose em-
brace, took my arm, and hurried me away.

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs
Gummidge's, for they were again at their usual flow, and
he was full of vivacious conversation as we went along,

"And so," he said, gaily, "we abandon this buccaneer
life to-morrow, do we? "

"So we agreed," I returned. "And our places by the
coach are taken, you know."

"Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose," said Steerforth.
" I have almost forgotten that there is anything to do in
the world but to go out tossing on the sea here. I wish
there was not."

"As long as the novelty should last," said I, laughing.

"Like enough," he returned; "though there's a sarcastic
meaning in that observation for an amiable jnece of inno-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 323

cence like my young friend. Well ! I dare say I am a capri-
cious fellow, David. I know I am; but while the iron
is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass a rea-
sonably good examination already, as a pilot in these
waters, I. think."

" Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder, " I returned.

" A nautical phenomenon, eh? " laughed Steerforth.

"Indeed he does, and you know how truly ; knowing how
ardent you are in any pursuit you follow, and how easily
you can master it. And that amazes me most in you,
Steerforth— that you should be contented with such fitful
uses of your powers."

" Contented? " he answered, merrily. "I am never con-
tented, except with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As
to fitfulness, I have never learnt the art of binding myself
to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of these days are
turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad
apprenticeship, and now don't care about it. — You know I
have bought a boat down here? "

" What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth ! " I
exclaimed, stopping — for this was the first I had heard of it.
" When you may never care to come near the place again ! "

"I don't know that," he returned. "I have taken a
fancy to the place. At all events," walking me briskly on,
" I have bought a boat that was for sale — a clipper, Mr.
Peggotty says ; and so she is — and Mr. Peggotty will be
master of her in my absence."

" Now I understand you, Steerforth ! " said I, exultingly.
"You pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you
have really done so to confer a benefit on him. I might
have known as much at first, knowing you. My dear kind
Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your gener-
osity? "

" Tush ! " he answered, turning red. " The less said, the
better."

"Didn't I know? " cried I, "didn't I say that there was
not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts
+hat was indifferent to you? "

"Ay, ay," he answered, "you told me all that. There
let it rest. We have said enough ! "

Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he
made so lighx of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we
went on at even a quicker pace than before.

324 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"She must be newly rigged," said Steerforth, "and I
shall leave Littimer behind to see it done, that I may
know she is quite complete. Did I tell you Littimer had
come down? "

"No."

" Oh, yes ! came down this morning, with a letter from
my mother."

As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his
lips, though he looked very steadily at me. I feared that
some difference between him and his mother might have
led to his being in the frame of mind in which I had found
him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.

" Oh no ! " he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight
laugh. "Nothing of the sort! Yes. He is come down,
that man of mine."

" The same as ever ? " said I.

"The same as ever," said Steerforth. "Distant and
quiet as the North Pole. He shall see to the boat being
fresh named. She's the Stormy Petrel now. What does
Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels ! I'll have her chris-
tened again."

" By what name? " I asked.

"The Little Em'ly."

As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as
a reminder that he objected to being extolled for his con-
sideration. I could not help showing in my face how much
it pleased me, but I said little, and he resumed his usual
smile, and seemed relieved.

"But see here," he said, looking before us, "where the
original little Em'ly conies ! And that fellow with her, eh?
Upon my soul, he's a true knight. He never leaves her! "

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved
a natural ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become
a skilled workman. He was in his working-dress, and
looked rugged enough, but manly withal, and a very fit
protector for the blooming little creature at his side. In-
deed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and
an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for
her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I thought,
as they came towards us, that they were well matched even
in that particular.

She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we
stopped to speak to them, and blushed as she gave it to

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 325

Steerforth and to me. When they passed on, after we had
exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that
hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked
by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging,
and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after
them fading away in the light of a young moon.

Suddenly there passed us— evidently following them— a
young woman whose approach we had not observed, but
whose face I saw as she went by, and thought I had a faint
remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked bold,
and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the
time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing,
and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As
the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself,
left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds,
her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to
them than before.

"That is a black shadow to be following the girl," said
Steerforth, standing still ; " what does it mean? "

He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to
me.

" She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,"
said I.

"A beggar would be no novelty," said Steerforth, "but
it is a strange thing that the beggar should take that shape
to-night."

"Why?" I asked him.

" For no better reason, truly, than because I was think-
ing," he said, after a pause, "of something like it, when it
came by. Where the Devil did it come from, I wonder ! "

"From the shadow of this wall, I think," said I, as we
emerged upon a road on which a wall abutted.

"It's gone!" he returned, looking over his shoulder
" And all ill go with it. Now for our dinner ! "

But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-
line glimmering afar off ; and yet again. And he wondered
about it, in some broken expressions, several times, in the
short remainder of our walk ; and only seemed to forget it
when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, seated
warm and merry, at table.

Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me.
When I said to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss
Dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and of course

326 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

respectably), that they were tolerably well, he thanked rne~
and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he
seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say : " You
are very young, Sir; you are exceedingly young."

We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or
two towards the table, from the corner where he kept watch
upon us, or rather upon me, as I felt, he said to his master :

" I beg your pardon, Sir. Miss Mowcher is down here."

"Who?" cried Steerforth, much astonished.

"Miss Mowcher, Sir."

"Why, what on earth does she do here? " said Steerforth.

"It appears to be her native part of the country, Sir.
She informs me that she makes one of her professional
visits here, every year, Sir. I met her in the street this
afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have the
honour of waiting on you after dinner, Sir."

" Do you know the giantess in question, Daisy? " in-
quired Steerforth.

I was obliged to confess — I felt ashamed, even of being
at this disadvantage before Littimer — that Miss Mowcher
and I were wholly unacquainted.

" Then you shall know her, " said Steerforth, " for she is
one of the seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mow-
cher comes, show her in."

I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, es-
pecially as Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I
referred to her, and positively refused to answer any ques-
tion of which I made her the subject. I remained, there-
fore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth
had been removed some half-an-hour, and we were sitting
over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door
opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite un-
disturbed, announced:

" Miss Mowcher ! "

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still
looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was
a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite
astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which
stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or
forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish
grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable
herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose as she
ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half'

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 327

way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was
what is called a double chin, was so fat that it entirely
swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all.
Throat she had none ; waist she had none ; legs she had
none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than
full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she
had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings
generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she
stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag
she carried on the seat. This lady ; dressed in an off-hand,
easy style ; bringing her nose and her forefinger together,
with the difficulty I have described ; standing with her head
necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes
shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face; after
ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent
of words.

"What! My flower!" she pleasantly began, shaking
her large head at him. "You're there, are you! Oh, you
naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you do so far away
from home? Up to mischief, I'll be bound. Oh, you're
a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm another,
ain't I? Ha, ha, ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound
to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't
you? Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere. I'm here,
and there, and where not, like the conjuror's half-crown
in the lady's hankercher. Talking of hankerchers — and
talking of ladies— what a comfort you are to your blessed
mother, ain't you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders,
and I don't say which! "

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her
discourse, threw back the strings, and sat down, panting,
on a foot-stool in front of the fire — making a kind of arbour
of the dming-table, which spread its mahogany shelter
above her head.

"Oh my stars and what's-their-names! " she went on,
clapping a" hand on each of her little knees, and glancing
shrewdly at me. " I'm of too full a habit, that's the fact,
Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives me as much
trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket
of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window,
you'd think I was a fine woman, wouldn't you? "

'' 1 should think that, wherever I saw you," replied Steer-
forth

328 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Go along, you dog, do ! " cried the little creature, mak-
ing a whisk at him with the handkerchief with which she
was wiping her face, " and don't be impudent! But I give
you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers' s last week
— there's sl woman ! How she wears ! — and Mithers himself
came into the room where I was waiting for her — there's a
man ! How he wears ! and his wig too, for he's had it these
ten years — and he went on at that rate in the compliment-
ary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring
the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch but he
wants principle."

" What were you doing for Lady Mithers? " asked Steer-
forth.

"That's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted? tap-
ping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling
her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. " Never
you mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair
from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or
improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall,
my darling — when I tell you ! Do you know what my great
grandfather's name was? "

"No," said Steerforth.

"It was Walker, my sweet pet," replied Miss Mowcher,
" and he came of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all
the Hookey estates from."

I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher' s
wink, except Miss Mowcher' s self-possession. She had a
wonderful way too, when listening to what was said to her,
or when waiting for an answer to what she had said herself.
of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye
turned up like a magpie's Altogether I was lost in amaze-
ment, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid,
of the laws of politeness.

She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was
busily engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her
short arm to the shoulder, at every dive) a number of small
bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs
of curling-;rons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in
a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly
desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion ■

" Who's your friend? "

•'Mr. Copperfield." said Steerforth; "he wants to know
you."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 329

" Well then, he shall ! I thought he looked as if he
iid ! " returned Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in
hand, and laughing on me as she came . " Face like a
peach ! " standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheeK. as I sat.
"Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches Happy to
make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure."

I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour
to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual.

" Oh my goodness, how polite we are ! " exclaimed Miss
Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large
face with her morsel of a hand. " What a world of gam-
mon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it! "

This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the
morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself,
arm and all, in the bag again.

" What do you mean, Miss Mowcher? " said Steerforth.

"Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs w^
are, to be sure, ain't we, my sweet child? " replied that
morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on
one side, and her eye in the air. " Look here ! M taking
something out. "Scraps of the Russian Prince's nails1.
Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, / call him, for his
name's got all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy."

"The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?" said
Steerforth.

"I believe you, my pet," replied >liss Mowcher. "1
keep his nails in order for him. l>?.ce a week! Fingera
and toes ! "

" He pays well, I hope? " said Steerforth.

"Pays as he speaks, my dent csaiid, — through the nose,n
replied Miss Mowcher. " J£ one of your close shavers the
Prince ain't. You'd say so, it you saw his moustachios.
Red by nature, black by art.'v

"By your art, of course,*' said Steerforth.

Miss Mowcher winked assent. " Forced to send for me.
Couldn't help rt. The climate affected his dye; it did
very well iti Itussia, but it was no go here. You nevei
saw such a rusty orince in all your born days as he was.
Like old iron ! *

"is that why you called him a humbug, just now?"
inquired Steerforth.

"Oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you? " returned Miss
Mowcher, shaking her head violently. " I said, what a set

330 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of humbugs we were in general, and I showed you the
scraps of the Prince's nails to prove it. The Prince's nails
do more for me in private families of the genteel sort, than
all my talents put together. I always carry 'em about.
They're the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the
Prince's nails, she must be all right. I give 'em away to
the young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe.
Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, ' the whole social system ' (as
the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is
a system of Prince's nails!" said this least of women,
trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large
head.

Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss
Mowcher continuing all the time to shake her head (which
was very much on one side), and to look into the air with
one eye, and to wink with the other.

"Well, well!" she said, smiting her small knees, and
rising, "this is not business. Come, Steerforth, let's ex-
plore the polar regions, and have it over. "

She then selected two or three of the little instruments,
and a little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table
would bear. On Steerforth 's replying in the affirmative,
she pushed a chair against it, and begging the assistance of
my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it
were a stage.

"If either of you saw my ankles," she said, when she
was safely elevated, " say so, and I'll go home and destroy
myself."

" 1 did not," said Steerforth.

"i did not," said I.

" Well then," cried Miss Mowcher, " I'll consent to live.
Now, ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be
killed!"

This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself
under her hands ; who-, accordingly, sat himself down, with
his back to the table, and his laughing face towards me, and
submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no other
purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher
standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown
hair through a large round magnifying-glass, which sho
took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.

" You9 re a pretty fellow!" said Miss Mowcher, after a
brief inspection. ' You'd be as bald as a friar on the top

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 331

of your head in twelve months, but for me. Just half -a-
minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a polishing
that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years ! "

With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little
bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again im-
parting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of
the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with
both on the crown of Steerforth' s head in the busiest man-
ler I ever witnessed, talking all the time.

"There's Charley Pyegrave, the Duke's son," she said
u You know Charley? " peeping round into his face.

"A little," said Steerforth.

"What a man he is! There's a whisker! As to Char-
ley's legs, if they were only a pair (which they ain't),
they'd defy competition. Would you believe he tried to
do without me — in the Life -Guards, too? "

"Mad!" said Steerforth.

"It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried," re-
turned Miss Mowcher. " What does he do, but, lo and
behold you, he goes into a perfumer's shop, and wants to buy
a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid. "

"Charley does? " said Steerforth.

" Charley does. But they haven't got any of the Mada-
gascar Liquid."

" What is it? Something to drink?" asked Steerforth.

"To drink?" returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap
his cheek. "To doctor his own moustachios with, you
know. There was a woman in the shop — elderly female
— quite a Griffin — who had never even heard of it by name.
'Begging pardon, Sir/ said the Griffin to Charley, 'it's
not — not — not rouge, is it? ' ■ Bouge/ said Charley to
the Griffin. ' What the unmentionable to ears polite, do
you think I want with rouge? ' ' Xo offence, Sir/ said the
Griffin ; ' we have it asked for by so many names, I thought
it might be.' ]STow that, my child," continued Miss Mow-
cher, rubbing all the time as busily as ever, " is another
instance of the refreshing humbug I was speaking of. /
do something in that way myself — perhaps a good deal —
perhaps a little — sharp's the word, my dear boy — never
mind!"

" In what way do you mean? In the rouge way? " said
Steerforth.

"Put this and that together, my tender pupil," returned

332 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

the wary Mowcher, touching her nose, " work it by the rule
of Secrets in all trades, and the product will give you the
desired result. I say /do a little in that way myself.
One Dowager, she calls it lip-salve. Another, she calls it
gloves. Another, she calls it tucker-edging. Another, she
calls it a fan. / call it whatever they call it. I supply it
for 'eni, but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and
make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon think of
laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me.
And when I wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes —
with it on— thick, and no mistake — ' How am I looking,
Mowcher? Am I pale?' Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn't that
refreshing, my young friend ! "

I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as
she stood upon the dining-table, intensely enjoying this
refreshment, rubbing busily at Steerforth's head, and wink-
ing at me over it.

" Ah ! " she said. " Such things are not much in demand
hereabouts. That sets me off again! I haven't seen a
pretty woman since I've been here, Jemmy."

"No?" said Steerforth.

"Not the ghost of one," replied Miss Mowcher.

" We could show her the substance of one, I think? "
said Steerforth, addressing his eyes to mine. " Eh, Daisy? "

"Yes, indeed," said I.

" Aha? " cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my
face, and then peeping round at Steerforth's. "Umph?"

The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both
of us, and the second like a question put to Steerforth only.
She seemed to have found no answer to either, but con-
tinued to rub, with her head on one side and her eye turned
up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air, and
were confident of its appearing presently.

" A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield? " she cried, after a
pause, and still keeping the same look-out. "Ay, ay?"

"No," said Steerforth, before I could reply. "Nothing
of the sort. On the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used — or I
am much mistaken — to have a great admiration for her."

"Why, hasn't he now?" returned Miss Mowcher. "Is
he fickle? oh, for shame! Did he sip every flower, and
change every hour, until Polly his passion requited? Is
her name Polly? "

The elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 333

with this question, and a searching look, quite disconcerted
me for a moment.

" No, Miss Mowcher," I replied. " Her name is Emily."

"Aha?" she cried exactly as before. "Umph? What
a rattle I am! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile? "

Her tone and look implied something that was not agree-
able to me in connexion with the subject. So I said, in a
graver manner than any of us had yet assumed :

" She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to
be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own
station of life. I esteem her for her good sense, as much
as I admire her for her good looks."

•'Well said!" cried Steerforth. "Hear, hear, hear!
2s ow, I'll quench the curiosity of this little Fatima, my
dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing to guess at. She is at
present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, or whatever
it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners,
and so forth, in this town. Do you observe? Omer and
Joram. The promise of which my friend has spoken, is
made and entered into with her cousin ; Christian name,
Ham ; surname, Peggotty ; occupation, boat-builder ; also of
this town. She lives with a relative ; Christian name, un-
known; surname, Peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also
of this town. She is the prettiest and most engaging little
fairy in the world. I admire her — as my friend does — ex-
ceedingly. If it were not that I might appear to disparage
her intended, which I know my friend would not like, I
would add, that to vie she seems to be throwing herself
away ; that I am sure she might do better ; and that I swear
she was born to be a lady."

Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very
slowly and distinctly spoken, with her head on one side,
and her eye in the air, as if she were still looking for that
answer. When he ceased she became brisk again in an in-
stant, and rattled away with surprising volubility.

" Oh, and that's all about it, is it? " she exclaimed, trim-
ming his whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that
went glancing round his head in all directions. "Very
well: very well! Quite a long story. Ought to end * and
they lived happy ever afterwards;' oughtn't it? Ah!
What's that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E,
because she's enticing: I hate her with an E, because she's
engaged. I took her to the sign of the exquisite, and

334 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

treated her with an elopement; her name's Emily, and she
lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I
volatile? "

Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not
waiting for any reply, she continued, without drawing
breath :

"There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and
touched up to perfection, you are, Steerforth. If I under-
stand any noddle in the world, I understand yours. Dc
you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I under-
stand yours," peeping down into his face. " Now you may
mizzle, Jemmy (as we say at -Court), and if Mr. Copper-
field will take the chair I'll operate on him."

" What do you say, Daisy? " inquired Steerforth, laugh-
ing, and resigning his seat " WiLL you be improved? "

"Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening."

"Don't say no," returned the little woman, looking at
me with the aspect of a connoisseur ; " a little bit more eye-
brow? "

"Thank you," I returned, "some other time."

" Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the
temple," said Miss Mowcher. " We can do it in a fort-
night,"

" Xo, I thank you. Not at present."

"Go in for a tip," she urged "Xo? Let's get the
scaffolding up, then, for a pair of whiskers. Come ! "

I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were
on my weak point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that
I was not at present disposed for any decoration within the
range of her art, and that I was, for the time being, proof
against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held
up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said she would
make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of
my hand to descend from her elevated station. Thus as-
sisted, she skipped down with much agility, and began to
tie her double chin into her bonnet.

"The fee," said Steerforth, "is "

"Five bob," replied Miss Mowcher, "and dirt cheap, my
chicken. Ain't I volatile, Mr. Copperfield?"

I replied politely : "Xot at all." But I thought she was
rather so, when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a
goblin pieman, caught them, dropped them in her pocket,
and gave it a loud slap

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 335

* That's the Till! " observed Miss Mowcher, standing at
the chair again, and replacing in the bag a miscellaneous
collection of little objects she had emptied out of it.
"Have I got all my traps? It seems so. It won't, do to
be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church
1 to marry him to somebody,' as he says, and left the bride
behind. Ha! ha! ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll!
Now, I know I'm going to break your hearts, but I am
forced to leave you. You must call up all your fortitude,
and try to bear it. Good bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take
care of yourself ,' Jockey of Norfolk! How I have been
rattling on ! It's all the fault of you two wretches, /for-
give you! 'Bob swore!' — as the Englishman said for
' Good night,' when he first learnt French, and thought it
so like English. ' Bob swore,' my ducks ! "

With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she
waddled away, she waddled to the door ; where she stopped
to inquire if she should leave us a lock of her hair. " Ain't
I volatile? " she added, as a commentary on this offer, and,
with her finger on her nose, departed.

Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible
for me to help laughing too ; though I am not sure I should
have done so, but for this inducement. When we had had
our laugh quite out, which was after some time, he told me
that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and
made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of
ways. Some people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he
said; but she was as shrewdly and sharply observant as
anyone he knew, and as long-headed as she was short-
armed. He told me that what she had said of being here,
and there, and everywhere, was true enough ; for she made
little darts into the provinces, and seemed to pick up cus-
tomers everywhere, and to know everybody. I asked him
what her disposition was : whether it was at all mischiev-
ous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side
of things : but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to
these questions after two or three attempts, I forebore or
forgot to repeat them. He told me instead, with much
rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her profits ; and
about her being a scientific cupper, if I should ever have
occasion for her service in that capacity

She was the principal theme of our conversation during
the evening : and when we parted for the night Steerforth

336 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

called after me over the banisters, " Bob swore ! " as T went,
downstairs.

I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis' s house, to
find Ham walking up and down in front of it, and still
more surprised to learn from him that little Em'ly was
inside. I naturally inquired why he was not there too,
instead of pacing the street by himself?

" Why, you see, Mas'r Davy." he rejoined, in a hesi-
tating manner, "Em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here."

" I should have thought," said I, smiling, "that that was
a reason for your being in here too, Ham."

" Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 't would be,"
he returned; "but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy," lowering his
voice, and speaking very gravely. "It's a young woman,
Sir — a young woman, that Em'ly knowed once, and doen't
ought to know no more."

When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the
figure I had seen following them, some hours ago.

" It's a poor wurem, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, " as is trod
under foot by all the town. Up street and down street.
The mowld o' the churchyard don't hold any that the folk
shrink away from, more."

"Did I see her to-night, Ham, on the sands, after we
met you? "

" Keeping us in sight ? " said Ham. " It's like you did,
Mas'r Davy. Not that I know'd then, she was theer, Sir,
but along of her creeping soon arterwards under Em'ly's
little winder, when she see a light come, and whisp'ring
' Ein'ly; Em'ly, for Christ's sake, have a woman's heart
towards me. I was once like you!' Those was solemn
flrords, Mas'r Davy, fur to hear! "

" They were indeed, Ham. What did Em'ly do? "

" Says Em'ly, ' Martha, is it you? Oh, Martha, can it
be you? ' — for they had sat at work together, many a day,
at Mr. Omer's."

" I recollect her now ! " cried I, recalling one of the two
girls I had seen when I first went there. "I recollect her
quite well ! "

" Martha Endell," said Ham. " Two or three year older
than Em'ly, but was at the school with her."

" I- never heard her name," said I. "I didn't mean to
interrupt you."

"For the matter o' that, Mas'r Davy," replied Ham,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 337

••all's told a'most in them words, 'Em'ly, Em'ly, for
Christ's sake, have a woman's heart towards me. I was
once like yon!' She wanted to speak to Em'ly. Em'ly
couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come
home, and he wouldn't — no, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, with
great earnestness, "he couldn't, kind-natur'd, tender-
hearted as he is, see them two together, side by side, for
all the treasures that's wrecked in the sea."

I felt how t.-ue this was. I knew it, on the instant,
quite as well as Ham.

" So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper," he pur-
sued, ' and gives it to her out o' window to bring here.
* Show that/ she says, ' to my aunt, Mrs. Barkis, and
she'll set you. down by her fire, for the love of me, till un-
cle is gone out, and I can come.' By-and-by she tells me
what I tell you, Mas'r Davy, and asks me to bring her.
What can I do? She doen't ought to know any such, but
I can't deny her, when the tears is on her face."

He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and
took out with great care a pretty little purse.

" And if I could deny her when the tears was on her
face, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the
rough palm of his hand, " how could I deny her when she
give me this to carry for her — knowing what she brought
it for? Such a toy as it is ! " said Ham, thoughtfully look-
ing on it. " With such a little money in it, Em'ly my
dear!"

I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it
away again — for that was more satisfactory to me than say-
ing anything — and we walked up and down, for a minute
or two, in silence. The door opened then, and Peggotty
appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have
kept away, but she came after me, entreating me to come
in too. Even then, I would have avoided the room where
they all were, but for its being the neat-tiled kitchen I have
mentioned more than once. The door opening immediately
into it, T found myself among them, before I considered
whither I was going.

The girl —the same I had seen upon the sands — was near
the fire. She was sitting on the ground, with her head and
one arm lying on a chair. I fancied, from the disposition
of her figure, that Em'ly had but newly risen from the
chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been
22

338 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl's face, over
which her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been
disordering it with her own hands ; but I saw that she was
young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been cry-
ing. So had little Em'ly. 'Not a word was spoken when
we first went in ; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed,
in the silence, to tick twice as loud as usual.

Em'ly spoke first.

^Martha wants," she said to Ham, "to go to London."

•Why to London?" returned Ham.

He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl
with a mixture of compassion for her, and of jealousy of
her holding any companionship with her whom he loved so
well, which I have always remembered distinctly. They
both spoke as if she were ill ; in a soft, suppressed tone
that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a
whisper.

"Better there than here," said a third voice aloud —
Martha's, though she did not move. "No one knows me
there. Everybody knows me here."

"What will she do there? " inquired Ham.

She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him
for a moment ; then laid it down again, and curved her right
arm about her neck, as a woman in a fever, or in an agony
of pain from a shot, might twist herself.

" She will try to do well," said little Em'ly. " You don't
know what she has said to us. Does he — do they — aunt? "

Peggotty shook her head compassionately.

"I'll try," said Martha, "if you'll help me away. 1
never can do worse than I have done here. I may do better.
Oh ! " with a dreadful shiver, " take me out of these streets,
where the whole town knows me from a child ! "

As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put ill it
a little canvas bag. She took it, as if she thought it were
her purse, and made a step or two forward ; but finding her
mistake, came back to where he had retired near me, and
showed it to him.

"It's all yourn, Em'ly," I could hear him say. "I
haven't nowt in all the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear.
It ain't of no delight to me, except for you! "

The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away
and went to Martha. What she gave her, I don't know.
I saw her stooping over >»er, and putting money in her bosom

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 339

She whispered something, and asked was that enough?
"More than enough," the other said, and took her hand
and kissed it.

Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her,
covering her face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly
to the door. She stopped a moment before going out, as if
she would have uttered something or turned back; but no
word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary,
wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away.

As the door closed, little Em'ly looked at us three in a
nurried manner, and then hid her face in her hands, and
fell to sobbing.

"Doen't, Em'ly! " said Ham, tapping her gently on the
shoulder. " Doen't, my dear ! You doen't ought to cry so,
pretty!"

" Oh, Ham ! " she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, " I
am not as good a girl as I ought to be ! I know I have not
the thankful heart, sometimes, I ought to have ! "

"Yes, yes, you have, I'm sure," said Ham.

"No! no! no!" cried little Em'ly, sobbing, and shaking
her head. " I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not
near ! not near ! "

And still she cried, as if her heart would break.

" I try your love too much. I know I do ! " she sobbed.
"'I'm often cross to you, and changeable with you, when I
ought to be far different. You are never so to me. Why
am I ever so to ^ou, when I should think of nothing but
how to be grateful, and to make you happy ! "

"You always make me so," said Ham, "my dear! I am
happy in the sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in
the thoughts of you."

" Ah ! that' s not enough ! " she cried. " That is because
you are good ; not because I am ! Oh, my dear, it might
have been a better fortune for you, if you had been fond of
some one else — of some one steadier and much worthier than
me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and
changeable like me ! "

"Poor little tender-heart," said Ham, in a low voice.
" Martha has overset her, altogether."

"Please, aunt," sobbed Em'ly, "come here, and let me
lay my head upon you. Oh, I am very miserable to-night,
aunt ! Oh, I am not as good a girl as I ought to be I am
not, I know ! "

340 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly,
with her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up
most earnestly into her face.

"Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to
help me ! Mr. David, for the sake of old times, do, please,
try to help me ! I want to be a better girl than I am. J
want to feel a hundred times more thankful than I do. I
want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife
of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me !
Oh my heart, my heart ! "

She dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and,
ceasing this supplication, which in its agony and grief was
half a woman's, half a child's, as all her manner was (being,
in that, more natural, and better suited to her beauty, as I
thought, than any other manner could have been), wept
silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant.

She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her ;
now talking encouragingly, and now jesting a little with
her, until she began to raise her head and speak to us. So
we got on, until she was able to smile, and then to laugh,
and then to sit up, half ashamed ; while Peggotty recalled
her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat again,
lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his
darling had been crying.

I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do
before. I saw her innocently kiss her chosen husband on
the cheek, and creep close to his bluff form as if it were
her best support. When they went away together, in the
waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their
departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw that she held
his arm with both her hands, and still kept clcse to him.

CHAPTER XXIII.

1 CORROBORATE MR. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFES-
SION.

When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of
little Em'ly, and her emotion last night, after Martha had
left. I felt as if I had come into the knowledge of those
domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence^

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 341

and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, wonld be
wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than
towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate,
and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always
be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved.
The repetition to any ears — even to Steerforth' s — of what
she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to
me by an accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy
of myself, unworthy of the light of our poor childhood,
which I always saw encircling her head. I made a resolu-
tion, therefore, to keep it in my own breast ; and there it
gave her image a Dew grace.

While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me
from my aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought
Steerf orth could advise me as well as anyone, and on which
I knew I should be delighted to consult himr I resolved to
make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For
the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our
friends. Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among
them, in his regret at our departure ; and I believe would
even have opened the box again, and sacrificed another
guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in
Yarmouth. Peggotty, and all her family, were full of grief
at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned
out to bid us good bye ; and there were so many seafaring
volunteers in attendance on Steerforth, when our portman-
teaus went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage of
a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters
to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret and ad-
miration of all concerned, and left a great many people
very sorry behind us.

" Do you stay long here, Littimer? " said I, as he stood
waiting to see the coach start.

"No, Sir," he replied; "probably not very long, Sii."

"He can hardly say just now," observed Steerforth/
carelessly. "He knows what he has to do, and he'll do
it,"

" That I am sure he will," said I.

Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgment of my good
opinion, and I felt about eight years old. He touched it
once more, wishing us a good journey; and we left him
standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any
pyramid in Egypt.

342 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth.
being unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged
in wondering, within myself, when I should see the old
places again, and what new changes might happen to me or
them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth. becoming
gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything
he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm :

"Find a voice, David. What about the letter you were
speaking of at breakfast? "

"Oh! " said I, taking it out of my pocket. "It's from
my aunt."

" And what does she say, requiring consideration ! "

"Why, she reminds me, Steerforth," said I, "that I
came out on this expedition to look about me, and to think
a little."

'Which, of course, you have done?"

" Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you
the truth, I am afraid I had forgotten it."

" Well ! look about you now, and make up for your negli-
gence," said Steerforth. "Look to the right, and you'll
see a flat country, with a good deal of marsh in it ; look to
the left, and you'll see the same. Look to the front, and
you'll find no difference; look to the rear, and there it is
still."

I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession
in the whole prospect ; which was perhaps to be attributed
to its flatness.

" What says our aunt on the subject? " inquired Steer-
forth, glancing at the letter in my hand. "Does she sug-
gest anything? "

"Why, yes," said I. "She asks me, here, if I think I
should like to be a proctor? What do you think of it? "

" Well, I don't know," replied Steerforth, coolly. "You
may as well do that as anything else, I suppose."

I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all
callings and professions so equally ; and I told him so.

" What is a proctor, Steerforth? " said T.

" Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney," replied Steer-
forth. " He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors'
Commons— a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard —
what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a
functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things,
would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 343

tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors'' Com-
mons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where they
administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all
kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of Acts of Parlia-
ment, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about,
and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a
fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that
has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and
people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats."

"Nonsense, Steerforth!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean
to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters
and ecclesiastical matters? "

"I don't, indeed, my dear boy," he returned; "but I
mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same
set of people, down in that same Doctors' Commons. You
shall go there one day, and find them blundering through
half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of
the ' Nancy' having run down the ' Sarah Jane/ or Mr.
Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a
gale of" wind with an anchor and cable to the ' Nelson '
Indiaman in distress ; and you shall go there another day,
and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting
a clergyman who has misbehaved himself ; and you shall
find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the
clergyman case, or contrariwise. They are like actors:
now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; now
he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else,
change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant
profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an
uncommonly select audience."

"But advocates and proctors are not one and the same? "
said I, a little puzzled. "Are they? "

"Xo," returned Steerforth, "the advocates are civilians
—men who have taken a doctor's degree at college— which
is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. The
proctors employ the advocates. Both get very comfortable
fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little party.
On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors'
Commons kindly, David. They plume themselves on their
gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any satisfaction."

I made allowance for Steerforth' s light way of treating
the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid
air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that

344 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard," did not feel
indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left
to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it
had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor
in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will
in my favour.

"That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt,
at all events," said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; "and
one deserving of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is
that you take kindly to Doctors' Commons."

I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steer-
forth that my aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found
from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings for a
week at a kind of private hotel in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in
the roof ; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house
in London was going to be burnt down every night.

We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes
recurring to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant
days when I should be a proctor there, which Steerforth
pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights,
that made us both merry. When we came to our journey's
end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but
one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found
my aunt up, and waiting supper.

If I had been round the world since we parted, we could
hardly have been better pleased to meet again. My aunt
cried outright as she embraced me ; and said, pretending to
laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly
little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt.

" So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt? " said I. " I
am sorry for that. Ah, Janet, how do you do? "

As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, 1 observed my
aunt's visage lengthen very much.

" I am sorry for it, too," said my aunt, rubbing her nose
" I have had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here "

Before I could ask why, she told me.

"I am convinced," said my aunt; laying her hand with
melancholy firmness on the table, "that Dick's character is
not a character to keep the donkeys off. I am confident he
wants strength of purpose. I ought to have left Janet at
home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been
at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing oe my

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 345

green," said my aunt, with emphasis, "there was one this
afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me
from head to foot, and I know it was a donkey ! "

I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected
consolation.

" It was a donkey," said my aunt; "and it was the one
with the stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a
woman rode, when she came to my house." This had been,
ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss Murd-
stone. " If there is any donkey in Dover, whose audacity
it is harder to me to bear than another's, that," said my
aunt, striking the table, "is the animal."

Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be dis-
turbing herself unnecessarily, and that she believed the
donkey in question was then engaged in the sand-and-gravel
line of business, and was not available for purposes of
trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it.

Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my
aunt's rooms were very high up — whether that -she might
have more stone stairs for her money, or might be nearer
to the door in the roof, I don't know — and consisted of a
roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I
did ample justice, and which were all excellent. But my
aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and
ate but little.

" I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought
up in a cellar," said my aunt, " and never took the air except
on a hackney coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef,
but I don't believe it. Nothing's genuine in the place, in
my opinion, but the dirt."

"Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the
country, aunt? " I hinted.

" Certainly not," returned my aunt. " It would be no
pleasure to a London tradesman to sell anything which was
what he pretended it was."

I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made
a good supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do.
When the table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange
her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a smarter
construction than usual ("in case of fire," my aunt said),
and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being hei
usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed.
I then made her, according to certain established regulations

346 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be per
mitted, a glass of hot white wine and water, and a slice of
toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments
we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting
opposite to me drinking her wine and water ; soaking her
strips of toast in it, one by one, before eating them ; and
looking benignantly on me, from among the borders of her
nightcap.

"Well; Trot," she began, "what do you think of the
proctor plan ? Or have you not begun to think about it yet? "

" I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and
I have talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like
it very much indeed. I like it exceedingly."

" Come ! " said my aunt. " That's cheering ! "

"I have only one difficulty, aunt."

"Say what it is, Trot," she returned.

" Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I
understand, to be a limited profession, whether my entrance
into it would not be very expensive? "

" It will cost," returned my aunt, "to article you, just a
thousand pounds."

" Now, my dear aunt," said I, drawing my chair nearer,
"I am uneasy in my mind about that. It's a large sum of
money. You have expended a great deal on my education,
and have always been as liberal to me in all things, as it
was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity.
Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life
with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of
getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure that
it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain
that you can afford to part with so much money, and that
it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you,
my second mother, to consider. Are you certain? "

My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she
was then engaged, looking me full in the face all the while ;
and then setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding
her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as follows :

"Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to pro-
vide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man.
I am bent upon it — so is Dick. I should like some people
that I know to hear Dick's conversation on the subject. Its
sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the resources of
that man's intellect, except myself! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 347

She stopped for a moment to take my hand between
hers, and went on :

"It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works
some influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have
been better friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might
have been better friends with that poor child your motner,
even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed me.
When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and
wayworn, perhaps I thought so. From that time until now,
Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and
pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means ; at least "
— here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused —
"no, I have no other claim upon my means — and you are
my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age,
and bear with my whims and fancies ; and you will do more
for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or
conciliating as it might have been, than ever that old woman
did for you."

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her
past history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way
of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would have exalted
her in my respect and affection, if anything could.

"All is agreed and understood between us now, Trot,"'
said my aunt, " and we need talk of this no more. Give
me a kiss, and we'll go to the Commons after breakfast
to-morrow."

We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed.
I slept in a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was
a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking
at my door as often as she was agitated by a distant sound
of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquiring "if I
heard the engines? " But towards morning she slept better;
and suffered me to do so too.

At about midday, we set out for the office of Messrs
Spenlow and Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons.' My aunt,
who had this other general opinion in reference to London,
that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse
to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some
silver.

We made a pause at the toy-shop in Fleet Street, to see
the giants of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells— we had
timed our going, so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock
,— and then went on towards Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's

348 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place, when
I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed and
looked frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a
lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us
in passing, a little before, was coming so close after us, as
to brush against her.

" Trot ! My dear Trot ! " cried my aunt, in a terrified
whisper, and pressing my arm. " I don't know what I am
to do."

" Don't be alarmed," said I. "There's nothing to be
afraid of. Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this
fellow."

"No, no, child!" she returned. "Don't speak to him
for the world. I entreat, I order you ! "

" Good Heaven, aunt ! " said I. " He is nothing but a
sturdy beggar."

" You don't know what he is ! " replied my aunt. " You
don't know who he is ! You don't know what you say ! "

We had stopped in an empty doorway, while this was
passing, and he had stopped too.

" Don't look at him ! " said my aunt, as I turned my
head indignantly, " but get me a coach, my dear, and wait
for me in St. Paul's Churchyard."

" Wait for you? " I repeated.

"Yes," rejoined my aunt. "I must go alone. I must
go with him."

" With him, aunt? This man? "

" I am in my senses," she replied, " and I tell you I must
Get me a coach ! "

However much astonished I might be, I was sensible
that I had no right to refuse compliance with such a per-
emptory command. I hurried away a few paces, and called
a hackney chariot which was passing empty. Almost before
I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know
how, and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to
go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was, I
turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to
the coachman, " Drive anywhere ! Drive straight on ! " and
presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill.

What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed
to be a delusion of his, now came into my mind. I could
not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had
made such mysterious mention, though what the nature o*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 349

his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable
to imagine . After half an hour' s cooling in the Churchyard,
I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside
me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone.

She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation
to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She
desired me to get into the chariot, and to tell the coachman
to drive slowly up and down a little while. She said no
more, except, " My dear child, never ask me what it was,
and don't refer to it," until she had perfectly regained her
composure, when she told me she was quite herself now,
and we might get out. On her giving me her purse, to pay
the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only
the loose silver remained.

Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low arch-
way. Before we had taken many paces down the street
beyond it, the noise of the city seemed to melt, as if by
magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts, and
narrow ways, brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spen-
low and Jorkins ; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible
to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or four
clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry
man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that
looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my
aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room.

"Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am," said the dry man;
"it's an Arches day; but it's close by, and I'll send for
him directly."

As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was
fetched, I availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture
of the room was old-fashioned and dusty ; and the green
baize on the top of the writing-table had lost all its colour,
and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. There were
a great many bundles of papers on it, some indorsed as
Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some
as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches
Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the
Admiralty Court, and some in the Delegates' Court ; giving
me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts there might
be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand
them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manu-
script Books of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound,
and tied together in massive sets, a set to each cause, as if

350 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

every cause were a history in ten or twenty volumes. All
this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an
agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my
eyes with increasing complacency over these and many
similar objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the
room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed
with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he
came.

He was a little light -haired gentleman, with undeniable
boots, and the stiff est of white cravats and shirt-collars.
He was buttoned up mighty trim and tight, and must have
taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were
accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive,
that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy
golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put
up over the gold-beaters' shops. He was got up with such
care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself ;
being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk,
after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body,
from the bottom of his spine, like Punch

I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had
been courteously received. He now said :

" And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into oar
profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when
I had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day, "
— with another inclination of his body — Punch again —
u. that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was good
enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her
peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to provide
genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the
pleasure of " — Punch again.

I bowed my acknowledgments, and said, my aunt had
mentioned to me that there was that opening, and that I
believed I should like it very much. That I was strongly
hiclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the pro-
posal. That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like
it, until I knew something more about it. That although
it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I should
huve an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound
myself to it irrevocably.

" Oh surely ! surely ! " said Mr. Spenlow. " We always,
in this house, propose a month — an initiatory month. 1
sV-^uld be happy, myself, to propose two months — three —

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 351

an indefinite period, in fact— but I have a partner. Mr.
Jorkins."

"And the premium, Sir," I returned, "is a thousand
pounds."

•• And the premium, stamp included, is a thousand
pounds," said Mr. Spenlow. "As I have mentioned to
Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no mercenary considera-
tions; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr. Jorkins has
his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect
Mr. Jorkins' s opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand
pounds too little, in short/' :.

"I suppose, Sir," said I, still desiring to spare my aunt,
" that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were
particularly useful, and made himself a perfect master of
his profession " — I could not help blushing, this looked so
like praising myself — " I suppose it is not the custom, in
the later years of his time, to allow him any "

Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far
enough out of his cravat, to shake it, and answered, antici-
pating the word " salar}- : "

" Xo. I will not say what consideration I might give to
that point myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered.
Mr. Jorkins is immovable."

I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins.
But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a
heavy temperament, whose place in the. business was to
keep himself in the background, and be constantly exhibited
by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a
clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen
to such a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his
bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid ; and
however painful these things might be (and always were)
to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have
his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow
would have been alw ays open, but for the restraining demon
Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I have had experi-
ence of some other houses doing business on the principle
of Spenlow and Jorkins !

It was settled that I should begin my month's probation
as soon as I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain
ni town nor return at its expiration, as the articles of
agreement, of which I was to be the subject, could easily
be sent to her »,t home for her signature. When we had

352 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then
and there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I
was willing enough to know, we went out with this object,
leaving my aunt behind ; who would trust herself, she said*
in no such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of
Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any
time.

Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard
formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred, from the
Doctors' names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-
places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told
me ; and into a large dull room, not unlike a ch'apel to my
thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room
was fenced off from the rest ; and there, on the two sides
of a raised platform of the horseshoe form, sitting on easy
old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen
in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doc-
tors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-
desk, in the curve of the horseshoe, was an old gentleman,
whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly
have taken for an owl, but who I learned was the presiding
judge. In the space within the horseshoe, lower than these,
that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry
other gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow' s rank, and dressed like
him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a
long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I
thought, and their looks haughty ; but in this last respect,
I presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for
when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question
of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more
sheepish. The public, represented by a boy with a com-
forter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly eating crumbs out
of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the
centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the place was
only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of
one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a
perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from
time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the
journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made
one at such a cose}^, dozey, old-fashioned, time -forgotten,
sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life ; and I felt
it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any
character — except perhaps as a suitor.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 353

Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat,
I informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that
time, and we rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I
presently departed from the Commons, feeling very young
when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins's, on account of
the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me
out. '

We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new
adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a
costermonger's cart, who suggested painful associations to
my aunt. We had another long talk about my plans,
when we were safely housed ; and as I knew she was anx-
ious to get home, and between fire, food, and pickpockets,
could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in
London, I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account,
but to leave me to take care of myself.

" I have not been here a week to-morrow, without con-
sidering that too, my dear," she returned. "There is a
furnished little set of chambers to be let in the Adelphi,
Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel."

With this brief introduction, she produced from her
pocket an advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper,
setting forth that in Buckingham Street in the Adelphi
there was to be let furnished, with a view of the river, a
singularly desirable and compact set of chambers, forming
a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one
of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate posses-
sion. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month
only if required.

" Why, this is the very thing, aunt ! " said I, flushed
with the possible dignity of living in chambers.

•'Then come," replied my aunt, immediately resuming
the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside. "We'll
go and look at 'em."

Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply
to Mrs. Crupp on the premises, and we rang the area bell,
which we supposed to communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It
was not until we had rung three or four times that we could
prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but at last
she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel
petticoat below a nankeen gown,

"Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please,
ma'am," said my aunt.
23

354 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"For this gentleman? " said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her
pocket for her keys.

"Yes, for my nephew," said my aunt.

" And a sweet set they is for sich ! " said Mrs. Crupp,

So we went up- stairs.

They were on the top of the house — a great point with
my aunt, being near the fire-escape — and consisted of a little
half-blind entry where you could see hardly anything, a
little stone-blind pantry where you could see nothing at
all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture was
rather faded, but quite good enough for me ; and, sure
enough, the river was outside the windows.

As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs
Crupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms, while
I remained on the sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think
it possible that I could be destined to live in such a
noble residence. After a single combat of some dura-
tion they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs.
Crupp' s countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was
done.

"Is it the last occupant's furniture? " inquired my aunt.

'•'Yes it is, ma'am," said Mrs. Crupp.

"What's become of him? " asked my aunt.

Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the
midst of which she articulated with much difficulty, " He
was took ill here, ma'am, and — ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!
— and he died ! "

" Hey ! What did he die of? " asked my aunt.

"Well, ma'am, he died of drink," said Mrs. Crupp, in
confidence. "And smoke."

" Smoke? You don't mean chimneys? " said my aunt.

"lNT-o-, ma'am," returned Mrs. Crupp. "Cigars and
pipes."

" That's not catching, Trot, at any rate," remarked my
aunt, turning to me.

"No, indeed," said I.

In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with
the premises, took them for a month, with leave to remain
for twelve months when that time was out. Mrs. Crupp
was to find linen, and to cook ; every other necessary was
already provided ; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that
she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to
take possession the day after to-morrow, and Mrs. Crupp

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 355

said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could
care for!

On our way back, my aunt informed me how she con-
fidently trusted that the life I was now to lead would make
me firm and self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She
repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our
arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books
from Mr. Wickfield's; relative to which, and to all my late
holiday, I wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt
took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day.
Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only add, that
she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants
during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great
disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance
before she went away ; that I saw her safely seated in the
Dover coach, exulting in the coming discomfiture of the
vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side ; and that when
the coach was gene, I turned my face* to the Adelphi,
pondering on the old days when I used to roam about its
subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had
brought me to the surface.

CHAPTER XXIV

MY FIRST DISSIPATION.

It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle
to myself, and to feel, when I shut my outer door, like
Robinson Crusoe, when he had got into his fortification,
and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a wonderfully
fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in
my pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come
home, and make quite sure of its being inconvenient to
nobody, if it were not so to me. It was a wonderfully fine
thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go without
a word to any one, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping,
from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her — and when
she was disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully
fine ; but I must say, too, that there were times when it
was very dreary.

It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine morn-

356 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ings. It looked a very fresh, free life, by daylight : still,
fresher, and more free, by sunlight. But as the day de-
clined, the life seemed to go down too. I don't know how
it was ; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted
somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a
tremendous blank, in the place of that smiling repository
of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp appeared to be a long way
off. I thought about my predecessor, who had died of
drink and smoke ; and I could have wished he had been so
good as to live, and not bother me with his decease.

After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there
for a year, and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite
as much tormented by my own youthfulness as ever.

Steerf orth not yet appearing, which induced me to appre-
hend that he must be ill, I left the Commons early on the
third dajT, and walked out to Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth
was very glad to see me, and said that he had gone away
with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived
near St. Albans, but that she expected him to return to-
morrow. I was so fond of him, that I felt quite jealous
of his Oxford friends.

As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and 1
believe we talked about nothing but him all day. I told
her how much the people liked him at Yarmouth, and what
a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle was full
of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest
in all our proceedings there, and said, "Was it really,
though? " and so forth, so often, that she got everything
out of me she wanted to know. Her appearance was exactly
what I have described it, when I first saw her ; but the
society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so
natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with
her. I could not help thinking, several times in the course
of the evening, and particularly when I walked home at
night, what delightful company she would be in Bucking-
ham Street.

I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before
going to the Commons — and I may observe in this place
that it is surprising how much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and
how weak it was, considering — when Steerforth himself
walked in, to my unbounded joy.

" My dear Steerforth," cried I, " I began to think I should
never see you again ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 357

"I was carried off by force of arms," said Steerforth,
" tlie very next morning after I got home. Why, Daisy,
what a rare old bachelor you are here ! "

I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the
pantry, with no little pride, and he commended it highly.
" I tell you what, old boy," he added, " I shall make quite
a town-house of this place, unless you give me notice to
quit."'

This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited
for that, he would have to wait till doomsday*

"But you shall have some breakfast! " said I, with my
hand on the bell-rope, " and Mrs. Crupp shall make you
some fresh coffee, and I'll toast you some bacon in a
bachelor's Dutch-oven that I have got here."

"No, no! " said Steerforth. "Don't ring! I can't! I
am going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at
the Piazza Hotel, in Covent Garden."

" But you'll come back to dinner? " said I.

"I can't, upon my life. There* s nothing I should like
better, but I must remain with these two fellows. We are
all three off together to-morrow morning."

"Then bring them here to dinner," I returned. "Do
you think they would come ? "

"Oh! they would come fast enough," said Steerforth;
" but we should inconvenience you. You had better come
and dine with us somewhere."

I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred
to me that I really ought to ha^e a little house-warming,
and that there never could be a better opportunity. I had
a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them, and
burned with a desire to develop their utmost resources. I
therefore made him promise positively in the names of his
two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner-
hour.

When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted
her with my desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the
first place, of course it was well known she couldn't be
expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, who
she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose
terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said,
certainly we would have him. Next, Mrs. Crupp said it
was clear she couldn't be in two places at once (which I
felt to be reasonable), and that " a young gal " stationed in

358 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

tlie pantry with a bedroom candle, there never to desist
i'om washing plates, would be indispensable. I said,
what would be the expense of this young female, and Mrs.
Crupp said she supposed eigh teen-pence would neither
make me nor break me. I said I supposed not; and that
was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner.

It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on
the part of the ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp' s
kitchen fireplace, that it was capable of cooking nothing
but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a fish-kittle, Mrs.
Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the range?
She couldn't say fairer than that. Would I come and look
at it? As I should not have been much the wiser if I had
looked at it, I declined, and said, " Never mind fish." But
Mrs. Crupp said, Don't say that; oysters was in, and why
not them? So that was settled. Mrs. Crupp then said
what she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot
roast fowls — from the pastrycook's; a dish of stewed beef,
with vegetables — from the pastrycook's; two little corner
things, as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys— from the
pastrycook's ; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of jelly — from
the pastrycook's. This, Mrs. Crupp said, would leave her
at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and
to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see
it done.

I acted on Mrs. Crupp' s opinion, and gave the order at
the pastrycook's myself. Walking along the Strand, after-
wards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the
window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble,
but was labelled "Mock Turtle," I went in and bought a
slab of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would
have sufficed for fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs.
Crupp, after some difficulty, consented to warm up ; and it
shrank so much in a liquid state, that we found it what
Steerforth called " rather a tight fit " for four.

These preparations happily completed, I bought a little
dessert in Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather exten-
sive order at a retail wine-merchant's in that vicinity.
When I came home in the afternoon, and saw the bottles
drawn up in a square on the pantry-floor, they looked so
numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs.
Crupp very uncomfortable), that I was absolutely fright-
ened at them.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 359

One of Steerforth' s friends was named Grainger, and the
other Markharn. They were both very gay and lively fel-
lows; Grainger, something older than Steerforth; Mark-
ham, youthful-looking, and I should say not more than
twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself
indefinitely, as "a man/*' and seldom or never in the first
person singular. .,

"A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperneld/
said Markham— meaning himself.

"It's not a bad situation," said I, "and the rooms are
really commodious." ■

"I hope you have both brought appetites with your
said Steerforth.

"Upon my honour," returned Markham, "town seems
to sharpen a man's appetite. A man is hungry all day
long. A man is perpetually eating."

Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too
young to preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the
table when dinner was announced, and seated myself oppo-
site to him. Everj^hing was very good; we did not spare
the wine ; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the
thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity.
I was not quite such good company during dinner as I could
have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and
my attention was distracted by observing that the handy
young man went out of the room very often, and that his
shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards,
on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The
" young gal " likewise occasioned me some uneasiness : not
so much by neglecting to wash the plates, as by breaking
them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, and unable
to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the
pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly
imagining herself detected; in which belief, she several
times retired upon the plates (with which she had carefully
paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction

These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily tor-
gotten when the cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on
the table ; at which period of the entertainment the handy
young man was discovered to be speechless. Giving him
private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to
remove the "young gal" to the basement also, I abandoned
myself to enjoyment

360 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted;
all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about, came rush-
ing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a most un-
wonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own jokes, and
everybody else's; called Steerforthto order for not passing
the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford;
announced that I meant to have a dinner-party exactly like
that, once a week until further notice ; and madly took so
much snuff out of Grainger's box, that I was obliged to go
into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten
minutes long.

I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and
continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine,
long before any was needed. I proposed Steerforth's health.
I said he was my dearest friend, the protector of my boy-
hood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was de-
lighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more
obligations than I could ever repay, and held him in a
higher admiration than I could ever express. I finished
by saying, "I'll give you Steerforth! God bless him:
Hurrah ! " We have him three times three, and another,
and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going
round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two
words) "Steerforth you'retheguidingstarofmyexistence."

I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the
middle of a song. Markham was the singer, and he sang
"When the heart of a man is depressed with care." He
said, when he had sung it, he would give us " Woman ! "
I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it. I said it
was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I
would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house
otherwise than as " The Ladies ! " I was very high with
him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger
laughing at me — or at him — or at both of us. He said a
man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was. He said
a man was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right
there — never under my roof, where the Lares were sacred,
and the laws of hospitality paramount. He said it was no
derogation from a man's dignity to confess that I was a
levilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his health.

Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. / was
smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shud-
der. Steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 361

of which I had been affected almost to tears. I returned
thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with
me to-morrow, and the day after— each day at five o'clock,
that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society
through a long evening. I felt called upon to propose an
individual. I would give them my aunt. Miss Betsey
Trotwood, the best of her sex !

Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window,
refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the para-
pet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I
was addressing myself as "Copperfield," and saying, "Why
did you try to smoke ? You might have known you couldn't
do it." Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his
features in the looking-glass. That was I too. I was very
pale in the looking-glass ; my eyes had a vacant appearance ;
and my hair— only my hair, nothing else — looked drunk.

Somebody said to me, " Let us go to the theatre, Cop-
perfield ! " There was no bedroom before me, but again
the jingling table covered with glasses; the lamp; Grainger
on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth
opposite— all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The
theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along!
But they must excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and
turned the lamp off — in case of fire.

Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone.
I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth,
laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went
down-stairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, some-
body fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was
Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding
myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there
might be some foundation for it.

A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps il
the streets ! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet.
I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-
post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced
from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I
hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, "You are
all right, Copperfield, are you not?" and I told him,
'c Neverberrer. "

A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole place, looked out of the
fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one
of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful

362 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

(as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to
take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we
were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into
a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke ; the people with
whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a
great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the
streets ; and there were people npon it, talking about some-
thing or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an
abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there
were ladies down in the boxes, and I don't know what more,
The whole building looked to me, as if it were learning to
swim ; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner,
when I tried to steady it.

On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs
to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman
lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in
his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure
at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into
one of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I
sat down, and people about me crying " Silence ! " to some-
body, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and — what !
yes! — Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box,
with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know.
I see her face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with
its indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me.

"Agnes!" I said, thickly, " Lorblessmer ! Agnes!"

" Hush ! Pray ! " she answered, I could not conceive
why. "You disturb the company. Look at the stage!"

I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something
of what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at
her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner,
and put her gloved hand to her forehead.

"Agnes!" I said. "I'mafraidyou'renorwell."

" Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood," she returned
" Listen ! Are you going away soon? "

" Amigoarawaysoo?" I repeated.

"Yes."

I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to
wait, to hand her down-stairs. I suppose I expressed it,
somehow ; for, after she had looked at me attentively for a
little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a
S\v tone:

" I know you wilT'do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 363

earnest in it. Go away now, Trot wood, for my sake, and
ask your friends to take you home."

She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I
was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short
" Goori ! " (which I intended for " Good night ") got up and
went away. They followed, and I stepped At once out of the
box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with
me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling
him that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring
the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine.

How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing
all this over again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream
all night — the bed a rocking sea that was never still ! How,
as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did I
begin to parch, and feel as if niy outer covering of skin
were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty
kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow
fire ; the paims of my hands, hot plates of metal which no
ice could cool !

But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt,
when I became conscious next day ! My horror of having
committed a thousand offences I had forgotten, and which
nothing could ever expiate — my recollection of that indelible
look which Agnes had given me — the torturing impossibility
of communicating with her, not knowing, beast that I was,
how she came to be in London, or where she stayed — my
disgust of the very sight of the room where the revel had
been held — my racking head — the smell of smoke, the sight
of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting
up ! Oh, what a day it was !

Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a
basin of mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and
thought I was going the way of my predecessor, and should
succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and
had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal all !
What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away
the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as
the entire remains of yesterday's feast, and I was really
inclined to fall upon her Hankeen breast, and say, in heart-
felt penitence, " Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp, never mind
the broken meats ! I am very miserable ! " — only that I
doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the
sort of woman to confide in '

364 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER XXV

GOOD AND BAD ANGELS.

I was going out at my door on the morning after that
deplorable day of headache, sickness, and repentance, with
an odd confusion in my mind relative to the date of my
dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had taken an enormous
lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months
back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming up-stairs, with a
letter in his hand. He was taking his time about his errand,
then ; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, look-
ing at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came
up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion.

" T. Copperfield, Esquire," said the ticket-porter, touch-
ing his hat with his little cane.

I could scarcely lay claim to the name : I was so disturbed
by the conviction that the letter came from Agnes. How-
ever, I told him I was T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he
believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required
an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for the
answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous
state that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast-
table, and familiarise myself with the outside of it a little,
before I could resolve to break the seal.

I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note,
containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. All
it said was, " My dear Trotwood. I am staying at the house
of papa's agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in Ely Place, Holborn.
Will you come and see me to-day, at any time you like to
appoint? Ever yours affectionately, Agnes."

It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to
my satisfaction, that I don't know what the ticket-porter
can have thought, unless he thought I was learning to write.
I must have written half a dozen answers at least. I began
one, " How can I ever hope, my dear Agnes, to efface from
your remembrance the disgusting impression" — there I
didn't like it, and then I tore it up. I began another,
" Shakspeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it
is that a man should put an enemy into his mouth " — that

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 365

reminded me of Markham, and it got no farther. I even
tried poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, " Oh,
do not remember "—but that associated itself with the Fifth
of November, and became an absurdity. After many at-
tempts, I wrote, " My dear Agnes. Your letter is like you,
and what could I say of it that would be higher praise than
that? I will come at four o'clock. Affectionately and
sorrowfully, T. C." With this missive (which I was in
twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out
of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed.

If the day were half as tremendous to any other profes-
sional gentleman in Doctors' Commons as it was to me, I
sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in
that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I left the
office at half -past three, and was prowling about the place
of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the ap-
pointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour,
according to the clock of St. Andrew's, Holborn, before I
could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private
bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Water-
brook's house.

The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook's establish-
ment was done on the ground floor, and the genteel business
(of which there was a good deal) in the upper part of the
building. I was shown into a pretty but rather close draw-
ing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse.

She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly
of my airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden,
smoky, stupid wretch I had been the other night, that, no-
body being by, I yielded to my self-reproach and shame,
and — in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot deny that
I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it was
upon the whole the wisest thing I could have done, or the
most ridiculous.

"If it had been any one but you, Agnes," said I, turning
away my head, " I should not have minded it half so much.
But that it should have been you who saw me ! I almost
wish I had been dead, first."

She put her hand— its touch was like no other hand —
upon my arm for a moment ; and I felt so befriended and
comforted, that I could not help moving it to my lips, and
gratefully kissing it.

" Sit down," said Agnes, cheerfully. " Don't be unhappy,

Z66 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Trotwood. If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will
you trust? "

" Ah, Agnes ! " I returned. " You are my good Angel ! "

Sha smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head.

" Yes, Agnes, my good Angel ! Always my good Angel ! "

"If I were, indeed, Trotwood," she returned, "there is
me thing that I should set my heart on very much."

I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a fore-
knowledge of her meaning.

"On warning you," said Agnes, with a steady glance,
"against your bad Angel."

" My dear Agnes," I began, " if you mean Steerf orth "

"I do, Trotwood," she returned.

" Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. He my bad
Angel, or anyone's! He, anything but a guide, a support,
and a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not
unjust, and unlike you, to judge him from what you saw
of me the other night? "

"I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other
night," she quietly replied.

" From what, then? "

" From many things — trifles in themselves, but they do
not seem to me to be so, when they are put together. I
judge him, partly from your account of him, Trotwood, and
your character, and the influence he has over you."

There was always something in her modest voice that
seemed to touch a chord within me, answering to that sound
alone. It was always earnest; but when it was very earn-
est, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued
me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her
work ; I sat seeming still to listen to her ; and Steerf orth,
in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that
tone.

"It is very bold in me," said Agnes, looking up again;
•'who have lived in such seclusion, and can know so little
of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even
to have this strong opinion. But I know in what it is
engendered, Trotwood, — in how true a remembrance of our
having grown up together, and in how true an interest in
all relating to you. It is that which makes me bold. I
am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it is.
I feel as if it were some one else speaking to you, and not I,
when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend,"

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 367

Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she
was silent, and again his image, though it was still fixed in
my heart, darkened.

"lam not so unreasonable as to expect," said Agnes,
resuming her usual tone, after a little while, "that you will,
or that you can, at once, change any sentiment that has
become a conviction to you ; least of all a sentiment that is
rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not hastily
to do that. I only ask you, Trot wood, if you ever think
of me — I mean," with a quiet smile, for I was going to
interrupt her, and she knew why, " as often as you think
of me — to think of what I have said. Do you forgive me
for all this?"

"I will forgive you, Agnes," I replied, "when you come
to do Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do."

"Not until then? " said Agnes.

I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this
mention of him, but she returned my smile, and we were
again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as of old.

"And when, Agnes," said I, "will you forgive me the
other night? "

" "When I recall it," said Agnes.

She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too
full of it to allow that, and insisted on telling her how it
happened that I had disgraced myself, and what chain of
accidental circumstances had had the theatre for its final
link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and to enlarge
on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of
me when I was unable to take care of myself.

"You must not forget," said Agnes, calmly changing
the conversation as soon as I had concluded, " that you are
always to tell me, not only when you fall into trouble, but
when you fall in love. "VYho has succeeded to Miss Larkins,
Trotwood? "

"No one, Agnes."

"Some one, Trotwood," said Agnes, laughing, and hold-
ing up her finger.

"No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly,
at Mrs. Steerforth' s house, who is very clever, and whom I
like to talk to — Miss Dartle — but I don't adore her."

Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me
that if I were faithful to her in my confidence she thought
she should keep a little register of my violent attachments,

368 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

with the date, duration, and termination of each, like the
table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the History
of England. Then she asked ine if I had seen Uriah.

" Uriah Heep? " said I. " No. Is he in London? "

" He comes to the office down-stairs, every day, " returned
Agnes. "He was in London a week before me. I am
afraid on disagreeable business, Trotwood."

" On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,"
said I. " What can that be? "

Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands
upon one another, and looking pensively at me out of those
beautiful soft eyes of hers :

" I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa. "

" What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm him-
self into such promotion ! " I cried, indignantly. " Have you
made no remonstrance about it, Agnes? Consider what
a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak out. You
must not allow your father to take such a mad step.
You must prevent it, Agnes, while there's time."

Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was
speaking, with a faint smile at my warmth: and then
replied :

" You remember our last conversation about papa? It
was not long after that — not more than two or three days —
when he gave me the first intimation of what I tell you. It
was sad to see him struggling between his desire to repre-
sent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his
inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt
very sorry."

" Forced upon him, Agnes ! Who forces it upon him? "

"Uriah," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "has
made himself indispensable to papa. He is subtle and
watchful. He has mastered papa's weaknesses, fostered
them, and taken advantage of them, until — to say all that
I mean in a word Trotwood — until papa is afraid of him."

There was more that she might have said ; more that she
knew, or that she suspected ; I clearly saw. I could not
give her pain by asking what it was, for I, knew that she
withheld it from me, to spare her father. It had long been
going on to this, I was sensible : yes, I could not but feel,
on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for
a long time. I remained silent.

"His ascendancy over papa," said Agnes, "is very great

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD; 369

He professes humility and gratitude — with truth, perhaps :
I hope so — but his position is really one of power, and I
fear he makes a hard use of his power."

I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a
great satisfaction to me.

" At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to
me," pursued Agnes, "he had told papa that he was going
away ; that he was very sorry, and unwilling to leave, but
that he had better prospects . Papa was very much depressed
then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have
seen him ; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the
partnership, though at the same time he seemed hurt by it
and ashamed of it."

" And how did you receive it, Agnes? "

"I did, Trotwood," she replied, " what I hope was right.
Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the
sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said
it would lighten the load of his life — I hope it will!— and
that it would give me increased opportunities of being his
companion. Oh, Trotwood!" cried Agnes, putting her
hands before her face, as her tears started on it, " I almost
feel as if I had been papa's enemy, instead of his loving
child. For I know how he has altered, in his devotion to
me. I know how he has narrowed the circle of his sym-
pathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind
upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut
out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have
shadowed his life, and weakened his strength and energy,
by turning them always upon one idea. If I could ever set
this right ! If I could ever work out his restoration, as I
have so innocently been the cause of his decline ! "

I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in
her eyes when I had brought new honours home from school,
and I had seen them there when we last spoke about her
father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head aside when
we took leave of one another ; but I had never seen her
grieve like this. It made me so sorry that I could only
say, in a foolish, helpless manner, "Pray, Agnes, don't!
Don't, my dear sister! "

But Agnes was too superior to me in character and pur-
pose, as I know well now, whatever I might know or not
know then, to be long in need of my entreaties. The beauti-
ful, calm manner, which makes her so different in my
24

370 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if
a cloud had passed from a serene sky.

" We are not likely to remain alone much longer," said
Agnes. " and while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly
entreat you, Trotwood, to be friendly to Uriah. Don't
repel him. Don't resent (as I think you have a general
disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him.
He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him
In any case, think first of papa and me ! "

Agnes had no time to say more, for the room-door opened,
and Mrs. Waterbrook, who was a large lady — or who wore
a large dress: I don't exactly know which, for I don't know
which was dress and which was lady — came sailing in. I
had a dim recollection of having seen her at the theatre, as
if I had seen her in a pale magic-lantern ; but she appeared
to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being
in a state of intoxication.

Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I
hope) that I was a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Water-
brook softened towards me considerably, and inquired,
firstly, if I went much into the parks, and secondly, if I
went much into society. On my replying to both these
questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again
in her good opinion ; but she concealed the fact gracefully,
and invited me to dinner next day. I accepted the invita-
tion, and took my leave, making a call on Uriah in the
office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in his absence.

When I went to dinner next day, and, on the street-door
being opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of
mutton, I divined that I was not the only guest, for I im-
mediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting
the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to
carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability,
when he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never
seen me before ; but well did I know him, and well did he
know me. Conscience made cowards of us both.

I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman,
with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt collar, who
only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog.
He told me he was happy to have the honour of making
my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs.
Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very
awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a greaf black velvet

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 371

Hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of
Hamlet's — say his aunt.

Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady's name; and her hus-
band was there too : so cold a man, that his head, instead
of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost.
Immense deference was shown to the Henry Spikers, male
and female ; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr.
Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I
forget what or which, remotely connected with the Treasury.

I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of
black, and in deep humility. He told me, when I shook
hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me,
and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension.
I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he
hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the even-
ing; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with
his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking
gauntly down upon us from behind.

There were other guests — all iced for the occasion, as it
struck me, like the wine. But, there was one who attracted
my attention before he came in, on account of my hearing
him announced as Mr. Traddles ! My mind flew back to
Salem House ; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used
to draw the skeletons !

I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He
was a sober, steady-looking young man of retiring manners,
with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were rather wide
open ; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that I had
some difficulty in making him out. At length I had a good
view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was
the old unfortunate Tommy.

I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I be-
lieved I had the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow
there.

" Indeed? " said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. " You are
too young to have been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker? "

"Oh, I don't mean him!" I returned. "I mean the
gentleman named Traddles."

" Oh ! Ay, ay ! indeed ! " said my host, with much
diminished interest. "Possibly."

"If it's really the same person," said I, glancing towards
him, "it was at a place called Salem House where we were
together, and he was an excellent fellow."

372 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow," returned my host,
nodding his head with an air of toleration. " Traddles is
quite a good fellow."

"It's a curious coincidence," said I.

"It is really," returned my host, "quite a coincidence,
that Traddles should be here at all : as Traddles was only
invited this morning, when the place at table, intended to
be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, became vacant,
in consequence of his indisposition. A very gentlemanly
man, Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, Mr. Copperneld."

I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, con-
sidering that I knew nothing at all about him ; and I in-
quired what Mr. Traddles was by profession.

"Traddles," returned Mr. Waterbrook, "is a young maa
reading for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow —
nobody's enemy but his own."

"Is he his own enemy? " said I, sorry to hear this.

" Well," returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth,
and playing with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, pros-
perous sort of way. " I should say he was one of those
men who stand in their own light. Yes., I should say he
would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound.
Traddles was recommended to me, by a professional friend.
Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent, for drawing briefs,
and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw
something in Traddles's way, in the course of the year;
something — for him — considerable. Oh yes. Yes."

I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and
satisfied manner in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself
of this little word " Yes," every now and then. There was
wonderful expression in it. It completely conveyed the
idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver
spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting
all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked,
from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philoso-
pher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches.

My reflections on this theme were still in progress when
dinner was announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with
Hamlet's aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook.
Agnes, whom 1 should have liked to take myself, was given
to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles,
and I, as the junior part of the company, went down last,
how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as t

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 373

might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of mak-
ing myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted
me with great fervour: while Uriah writhed with such
obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could
gladly have pitched him over the banisters.

Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in
two remote corners : he in the glare of a red velvet lady ;
I, in the gloom of Hamlet's aunt. The dinner was very
long, and the conversation was about the Aristocracy — and
Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she
had a weakness, it was Blood.

It occurred to me several times that we should have got
on better, if we had not been quite so genteel. We were
so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was very limited.
A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who had
something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge
had), with the law business of the Bank; and what with
the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclu-
sive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Ham-
let's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy,
and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every
topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be
sure ; but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as
wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew him-
self.

We might have been a party of ogres, the conversation
assumed such a sanguine complexion.

"I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook' s opinion," said
Mr. Waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. " Other
things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood ! "

"Oh! There is nothing," observed Hamlet's aunt, "so
satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much
one's beau-ideal of— of all that sort of thing, speaking gen-
erally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy
to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do
what I should call bow down before idols. Positively
idols! Before services, intellect, and so on. But these
are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in
a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and
we say, ' There it is! That's Blood!' It is an actual
matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no
doubt."

The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken

374 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet^ I
^bought.

"Oh, yon know, dence take it," said this gentleman,
looking round the board with an imbecile smile, "we can't
forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know.
Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their
station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and
may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and
other people into a variety of fixes — and all that — but deuce
take it, it's delightful to reflect that they've got Blood in
'em! Myself, I'd rather at any time be knocked down by
a man who had got Blood in him, than I'd be picked up
by a man who hadn't! "

This sentiment, as compressing the general question into
a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the
gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired. After
that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker,
who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive
alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a
mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and
overthrow.

"That affair of the first bond for four thousand five
hundred pounds has not taken the course that was expected,
Gulpidge," said Mr. Henry Spiker.

"Do you mean the D. of A.'s ? " said Mr. Spiker.

"The C. of B.'s ? " said Mr. Gulpidge.

Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much con-
cerned.

"When the question was referred to Lord — I needn't
name him," said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself —

"I understand," said Mr. Spiker, "N."

Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded — "was referred to him, his
answer was, ( Money, or no release.' "

" Lord bless my soul ! " cried Mr. Spiker.

"Money, or no release," repeated Mr. Gulpidge firmly
'The next in reversion — you understand me? "

•*K.," said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look.

" — K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended
at Newmarket for that yjurpose, and he point-blank refused
to do it."

Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony,

"So the matter rests at this hour," said Mr. Gulpidge,.
throwing himself back in his chair. "Our friend Water-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 375

brook will excuse nie if I forbear to explain myself gener-
ally, on account of the magnitude of the interests involved."

Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to
me, to have snch interests, and such names, even hinted
at, across his table. He assumed an expression of gloomy
intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew no more about
the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the dis-
cretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the
receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired to favour
his friend with a confidence of his own ; therefore the fore-
going dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was
Mr. Gulpidge's turn to be surprised, and that by another
in which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker' s turn
again, and so on, turn and turn about. All this time we,
the outsiders, remained oppressed by the tremendous inter-
ests involved in the conversation ; and our host regarded us
with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and astonish-
ment.

I was very glad indeed to get up-stairs to Agnes, and to
talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her,
who was shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured
creature still. As he was obliged to leave early, on account
of going away next morning for a month, I had not nearly
so much conversation with him as I could have wished ; but
we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleas-
ure of another meeting when he should come back to town.
He was greatly interested to hear that I knew Steerforth,
and spoke of him with such warmth that I made him tell
Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only looked at
me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only
I observed her.

As she was not among people with whom I believed she
could be very much at home, I was almost glad to hear that
she was going away within a few days, though I was sorry
at the prospect of parting from her again so soon. This
caused me to remain until ail the company were gone.
Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a
delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave
old house she had made so beautiful, that I could have
remained there half ths night ; but having no excuse for
staying any longer, when £>* Jights of Mr. Waterbrook' s
society were all suuffVi out. 1 took my leave very much
against my inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that

376 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

she was my better Angel ; and if I thought of her sweet face
and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from some
removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no harm.

I have said that the company were all gone ; but I ought
to have excepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that de-
nomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us.
He was close behind me when I went down-stairs. He
was close beside me, when I walked away from the house,
slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer
fingers of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves.

It was in no disposition for Uriah's company, but in
remembrance of the entreaty Agnes had made to me, that
I asked him if he would come home to my rooms and have
some coffee.

"Oh, really, Master Copperfield," he rejoined, — "I beg
your pardon, Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so
natural, — I don't like that you should put a constraint upon
yourself to ask a numble person like me to your ouse."

" There is no constraint in the case," said I. " Will you
come? "

"I should like to, very much," replied Uriah, with a
writhe.

" Well, then, come along ! " said I.

I could not help being rather short with him, but he
appeared not to mind it. We went the nearest way, with-
out conversing much upon the road ; and he was so humble
in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he was still put-
ting them on, and seemed to have made no advance on that
labour, when we got to my place.

I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his
head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt
so like a frog in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and
run away. Agnes and hospitality prevailed, however, and
I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted my
candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that
was revealed to him ; and when I heated the coffee in an
unassuming block-tin vessel in which Mrs. Crupp delighted
to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended
for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was
a patent invention of great price mouldering away 'in the
pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully
have scalded him.

"Oh, really, Master Copperfield, — I mean Mister Cop-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 377

perfield," said Uriah, "to see you waiting upon me is what
I never could have expected ! But, one way and another,
so many things happen to me which I never could have
expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems to
rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I
des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,
— / should say, Mister Copperfield? "

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up
under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground
close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his
shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched
their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me,
the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his
nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky
undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots,
I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely.
It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for
I was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly
felt.

" You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in
my expectations, Master Copperfield — I should say, Mister
Copperfield? " observed Uriah.

"Yes," said I, "something."

" Ah ! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it ! " he
quietly returned. "I'm glad to find Miss Agnes knows of
it. Oh, thank you, Master — Mister Copperfield ! "

I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on
the rug), for having entrapped me into the disclosure of
anything concerning Agnes, however immaterial. But I
only drank my coffee.

" What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Cop-
perfield!" pursued Uriah. "Dear me, what a prophet you
have proved yourself to be ! Don't you remember saying to
me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in Mr. Wick-
field's business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and
Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is
umble, Master Copperfield, a person treasures such things
up!"

" I recollect talking about it," said I, "though I certainly
did not think it very likely then."

" Oh ! who would have thought it likely, Mister Copper-
field ! " returned Uriah, enthusiastically. " I am sure I
didn't myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I

378 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was much too umble. So I considered myself really and
truly."

He sat, with, that carved grin on his face, looking at the
fire as I looked at him.

" But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield," he pres-
ently resumed, " may be the instruments of good. I am
glad to think I have been the instrument of good to Mr.
Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh, what a worthy
man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has
been!" [

" I am sorry to hear it," said I. I could not help adding,
rather pointedly, "on all accounts."

" Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield, " replied Uriah. " On
all accounts. Miss Agnes' s above all! You don't remem-
ber your own eloquent expressions, Master Copperfield;
but / remember how you said one day that everybody must
admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have
forgot that I have no doubt, Master Copperfield? "

"No," said I, drily.

"Oh how glad I am, you have not! " exclaimed Uriah.
" To think that you should be the first to kindle the sparks
of ambition in my umble breast, and that you've not forgot

it! Oh! Would you excuse me asking for a cup more

coffee?"

Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of
those sparks, and something in the glance he directed at me
as he said it, had made me start as if I had seen him illu-
minated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his request, pre-
ferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours of
the shaving-pot ; but I did them with an unsteadiness of
hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, and a
perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going
to say next, which I felt could not escape his observation.

He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and
round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly
hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he
gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated
about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped
again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.

"So, Mr. Wickfield," said I, at last, "who is worth five
hundred of you — or me ; " for my life, I think, I could not
have helped dividing that part of the sentence with an
awkward jerk; "has beeu imprudent, has he, Mr. Heep? "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 379

"Oh very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield," re-
turned Uriah, sighing modestly. " Oh very much so ! But
I wish you'd call me Uriah, if you please. It's like old
times."

"Well! Uriah," said I, bolting it out with some difficulty.
" Thank you ! " he returned, with fervour. " Thank you,
Master Copperfield ! It's like the blowing of old breezes
or the ringing of old bellses to hear you say Uriah. I beg
your pardon. Was I making any observation? "
"About Mr. Wickfield," I suggested.
"Oh! Yes, truly," said Uriah. "Ah! Great impru-
dence, Master Copperfield. It's a topic that I wouldn't
touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to you I can only
touch upon it, and no more. If any one else had been in
my place during the last few years, by this time he would
have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is,
Master Copperfield, too !) under his thumb. Un— der— his
thumb," said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his
cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own
thumb down upon it, until it shook, and shook the room.
If I had been obliged to look at him with his splay foot
on Mr. Wickfield' s head, I think I could scarcely have
hated him more.

"Oh dear, yes, Master Copperfield," he proceeded, in a
soft voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of
his thumb, which did not diminish its hard pressure in the
least degree, "there's no doubt of it. There would have
been loss, disgrace, I don't know what all. Mr. Wickfield
knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him,
and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to
reach. How thankful should I be ! " With his face turned
towards me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he
took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted
it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with
it, as if he were shaving himself.

I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw
his crafty face, with the appropriately red light of the fire
upon it, preparing for something else.

" Master Copperfield," he began— "but am I keeping you
up?"

"You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed
late."

" Thank you, Master Copperfield ! I have risen from my

mO PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

unibie station since first yon used to address me, it is true ;
but I am nmble still. I hope I never shall be otherwise
than nmble. You will not think the worse of my umble-
ness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copper-
field? Will you ? "

"Oh no," said I, with an effort.

" Thank you ! " He took out his pocket-handkerchief,
and began wiping the palms of his hands. "Miss Agnes,
Master Copperfield "

"Well, Uriah?"

" Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously ! *
he cried ; and gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish.
" You thought her looking very beautiful to-night, Master
Copperfield? "

" I thought her looking as she always does : superior, iu
all respects, to every one around her," I returned.

"Oh, thank you! It's so true! " he cried. "Oh, thank
you very much for that ! "

"Not at all," I said, loftily. "There is no reason why
you should thank me."

"Why that, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, "is, in
fact, the confidence that I am going to take the liberty of
reposing. Umble as I am," he wiped his hands harder,
and looked at them and at the fire by turns, " umble as my
mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever
been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don't mind trusting you
with my secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always over-
flowed towards you since the first moment I had the pleas-
ure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has beer in my breast
for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affec-
tion do I love the ground my Agnes walks on ! "

I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot
poker out of the fire, and running him through with it. It
went from me with a shock, like a ball fired from a rifle :
out the image of Agnes, outraged by so much as a thought
of this red headed animal's, remained in my mind when I
looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped
his body, and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and
grow before my eyes ; the room seemed full of the echoes
of his voice ; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps,
no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred be-
fore, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he wa»
going to say next, took possession of me.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 381

A timely observation of the sense of power that there
was in his face, did more to bring back to my remembrance
the entreaty of Agnes, in its full force, than any effort I
could havj made. I asked him, with a better appearance
of composure than I could have thought possible a minute
before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes,

"Oh, no, Master Copperfield ! " he returned; "oh dear,
no! Not to anyone but you. You see I am only just
emerging from my lowly station. I rest a good deal of
hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for I
trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield),
and how I smooth the way for him, and keep him straight.
She's so much attached to her father, Master Copperfield
(oh what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that I think
she may come, on his account to be kind to me."

I fathomed the depth of the rascal's whole scheme, and
understood why he laid it bare.

" If you'll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master
Copperfield," he pursued, "and not, in general, to go
against me, I shall take it as a particular favour. You
wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness. I know what a
friendly heart you've got; but having only known me on
my umble footing (on my uniblest, I should say, for I am
very umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me
rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you see, Master
Copperfield. There's a song that says, 'I'd crowns resign,
to call her mine ! ' I hope to do it, one of these days."

Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for any-
one that I could think of, was it possible that she was
reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this !

"There's no hurry at present, you know, Master Copper-
field," Uriah proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing
at him, with this thought in my mind. "My Agnes is
very young still; and mother and me will have to work our
way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements,
before it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time
gradually to make her familiar with my hopes, as oppor-
tunities offer. Oh, I'm so much obliged to you for this
confidence! Oh, it's such a relief, you can't think, to
know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as
you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness in the family)
not to go against me ! "

He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and hav

382 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ing given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced
watch

"Dear me! " he said, "it's past one. The moments slip
away so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield,
that it's almost half -past one! "

I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I
had really thought so, but because my conversational pow-
ers were effectually scattered.

" Dear me ! " he said, considering. " The ouse that I am
stopping at — a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse,
Master Copperfield, near the New River ed — will have gone
to bed these two hours."

"I am sorry," I returned, "that there is only one bed
here, and that I "

" Oh, don't think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield !"
he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. "But would
you have any objections to my laying down before the fire? "

"If it comes to that," I said, "pray take my bed, and
I'll lie down before the fire."

His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in
the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated
to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a
distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water
mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incor-
rigible clock, to which she alway6 referred me when we
had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and
which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too
slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the
best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my be-
wildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in
inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make
the best arrangements I could, for his repose before the
fire. The mattress of the sofa (which was a great deal too
short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, the
table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great-coat, made
him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thank-
ful. Having lent him a nightcap, which ne put on at once,
and in which he made such an awful figure that I have
never worn one since, I left hiir to his rest.

I never shall forget th.it night. I never shall forget how
I turned and tumbled ; now I wearied myself with think-
ing about Agnes and thvs creature; how I considered what
could I do, and what o^gnt I to do; how I could come to

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 383

no other conclusion than that the best course for her peace,
was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard.
If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes
with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on
her, as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with
appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. When
I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next
room sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare ;• and op-
sd me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner
quality of devil for a lodger.

The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and
wouldn't come out. I thought, between sleeping and wak-
ing, that it was still red-hot, and I had snatched it out of
the fire, and run him through the body. I was so haunted
at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it,
that I stole into the next room to look at him. There I
saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I
don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat,
stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office.
He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered
fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very re-
pulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every
half -hour or so, and taking another look at him. Still, the
long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and
no promise of day was in the murky sky.

When I saw him going down-stairs early in the morning
(for, thank Heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it
appeared to me as if the night was going away in his person.
When I went out to the Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp
with particular directions to leave the windows open, that
my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.

CHAPTER XXVI.

I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY.

I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes
left town. I was at the coach-office to take leave of her
and see her go ; and there was he, returning to Canterbury
by the same conveyance. It was some small satisfaction

384 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered,
mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with
an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat
on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, inside ; but what
I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, while
Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense.
At the coach-window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered
about us without a moment's intermission, like a great vul-
ture : gorging himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes,
or Agnes said to me.

In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my
fire had thrown me, I had thought very much of the words
Agnes had used in reference to the partnership: "I did
what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary
for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I en-
treated him to make it." A miserable foreboding that she
would yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in
reference to any sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me
ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew what the
devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips
that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors,
and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay.
I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from
this detestable Hufus with the mulberry-coloured great-
coat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in
the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of
his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he knew
thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well.

Yet, I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice
afar off, must destroy the happiness of Agnes ; and I was
so sure, from her manner, of its being unseen by her then,
and having cast no shadow on her yet; that I could as soon
have injured her, as given her any warning of what im-
pended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation :
she waving her hand and smiling farewell from the coach-
window ; her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he had
her in his clutches and triumphed.

I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a
long time. When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arri-
val, I was as miserable as when I saw her going away.
Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was
sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be
redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming

OF P.WID COPPERFIELD. 385

of it. It became a part of ray life, and as inseparable from
my life as my own head.

I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness : for
Steerforth was at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I
was not at the Commons, I was very much alone. I be-
lieve I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerfortli.
I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I
think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come
to London just then. I suspect the truth to be, that
the influence' of Agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the
sight of him; and that it was the more powerful with
me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and
interest.

In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was-
articled to Spenlow and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a
year (exclusive of my house-rent and sundry collateral
matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged for
twelve months certain: and though I still found them
dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, 1 could settle
down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself
to coffee ; which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by
the gallon at about this period of my existence. At about
this time, too, I made three discoveries: first, that Mrs.
Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called " the spaz-
zums," which was generally accompanied with inflamma-
tion of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with
peppermint; secondly, that something peculiar in the tem-
perature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles burst;
thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to
record that circumstance in fragments of English versifica-
tion.

On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place,
beyond my having sandwiches and sherry into the office for
the clerks, and going alone to the theatre at night. I went
to see "The Stranger" as a Doctors' Commons sort of
play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew
myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow
remarked, on this occasion, when we concluded our busi-
ness, that he should have been happy to have seen me at
his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming connected,
but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder,
on account of the expected return of his daughter from
finishing her education at Paris. But, he intimated that
25

386 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

when she came home he should hope to have the pleasure
of entertaining me. I knew that he was a widower with
one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments.

Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week 01
two, he referred to this engagement, and said, that if I
would do him the favour to come down next Saturday, and
stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. Of course
I said I would do him the favour; and he was to drive me
down in his phaeton, and to bring me back

When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object
of veneration to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house
at Norwood was a sacred mystery. One of them informed
me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off
plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being
constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table beer.
The old clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey,
had been down on business several times in the course of
his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to the
breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of the
most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drank brown
East India sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make
a man wink.

We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day —
about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in
a vestry to a paving-rate — and as the evidence was just
twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a calcu-
lation I made, it was rather late in the day before we
finished. However, we got him excommunicated for six
weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and then the
baker's proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both
sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town to-
gether, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phae-
ton.

The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses
arched their necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew
they belonged to Doctors' Commons. There was a good
deal of competition in the Commons on all points of dis-
play, and it turned out some very choice equipages then-,
though I always have considered, and always shall consider,
that in my time the great article of competition there was
starch: which I think was worn among the proctors to as
great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear.

We wu'B very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 387

gave me some hints in reference to my profession. He
said it was the genteelest profession in the world, and must
on no account be confounded with the profession of a solici-
tor : being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more ex-
clusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. We took
things much more easily in the Commons than they could
be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that sets us, as
a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible to
conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed
by solicitors ; but he gave me to understand that they were
an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by
all proctors of any pretensions.

I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of
professional business? He replied, that a good case of a
disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty
or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all.
In such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty
pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the
proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on
interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of
an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and then to the
Lords) ; but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of the
estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited
manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he
launched into a general eulogium on the Commons. What
was to be particularly admired (he said) in the Commons,
was its compactness. It was the most conveniently organ-
ised place in the world. It was the complete idea of snug-
ness. It lay in a nutshell. For example : You brought a
divorce case, or a restitution case, into the Consistory.
Very good. You tried it in the Consistory. You made a
quiet little round game of it, among a family group, and
you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satis-
fied with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why,
you went into the Arches. What was the Arches? The
same court, in the same room, with the same bar, and the
same practitioners, but another judge, for there the Con-
sistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate.
Well, you played your round game out again. Still you
were not satisfied. Very good. What did you do then?
"Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the Dele-
gates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advo-
cates without any business, who had looked on at the round

388 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

game when it was playing in both courts, and had seen the
cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to all
the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, t<*
settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody ! Discon-
tented people might talk of corruption in the Commons,
.closeness in the Commons, and the necessity of reforming
the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in Conclusion;
hut when the price of wheat per bushel had been highest,
the Commons had been busiest ; and a man might lay his
liand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world, —
u Touch the Commons, and down comes the country! "

I listened to all this with attention ; and though, I must
say, I had my doubts whether the country was quite as
much obliged to the Commons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I
respectfully deferred to his opinion. That about the price
of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for my
strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to
this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has
reappeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in con-
nexion with all kinds of subjects. I don't know now, ex-
actly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has to
crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions ; but whenever
I see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and
shoulders (as he always is, I observe), I give up a subject
for lost.

This is a digression, I was not the man to touch the
Commons, and bring down the country. I submissively
expressed, by my silence, my acquiescence in all I had
heard from my superior in years and knowledge ; and we
talked about " The Stranger " and the Drama, and the pair
•of horses, until we came to Mr. Spenlow' s gate.

There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow' s house; and
though that was not the best time of the year for seeing
a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that I was quite en-
chanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters
of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just
distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on
which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season.
" Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself," I thought. ''Dear
me!"

We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted
up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats,
caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 389

" Where is Miss Dora? " said Mr. Spenlow to the servant..
" Dora ! " I thought. " What a beautiful name ! "

We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the
identical breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown
East India sherry), and I heard a voice say, "Mr. Copper-
field, my daughter Dora, and my daughter Dora's confiden-
tial friend! " It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow' s voice, but
I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it was. All was
over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a
captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction !

She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a
Sylph, I don't know what she was — anything that no one
ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I
was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There
was no pausing on the brink ; no looking down, or looking
back ; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a
word to her.

"i," observed a well-remembered voice, when I had
bowed and murmured something, "have seen Mr. Copper-
field before."

The speaker was not Dora. Xo; the confidential friend,
Miss Murdstone !

I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of
my judgment, no capacity of astonishment was left in me.
There was nothing worth mentioning in the material wrorld,
bat Dora Spenlow, to be astonished about. I said, "How
do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well." She
answered, "Very well." I said, "How is Mr. Murd-
stone? " She replied, "My brother is robust, I am obliged
to you."

Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see
us recognise each other, then put in his word.

"I am glad to find," he said, "Copperfield, that you and
Miss Murdstone are already acquainted."

" Mr. Copperfield and myself, " said Miss Murdstone, with
severe composure, " are connexions. We were once slightly
acquainted. It was in his childish days. Circumstances
have separated us since. I should not have known him."

I replied that I should have known her, anywhere.
Which was true enough.

"Miss Murdstone has had the goodness," said Mr. Spen-
low to me, "to accept the office — if I may so describe it —
of my daughter Dora's confidential friend. My daughter

390 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss Murdstone i3
obliging enough to become her companion and protector."

A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone
like the pocket-instrument called a life-preserver, was not
so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault
But as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject
save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was
thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that
she was not very much inclined to be particularly confi-
dential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang,
which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so
carried me off to dress.

The idea of dressing one's self, or doing anything in the
way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridicu-
lous. I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key
of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish,
bright-eyed, lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a
face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner !

The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble
of my dressing, instead of the careful operation I could
have wished under the circumstances, and went down-
stairs. There was some company. Dora was talking to
an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was — and
a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so — I was
madly jealous of him.

What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of every-
body. I couldn't bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr.
Spenlow better than I did. It was torturing to me to hear
them talk of occurrences in which I had had no share.
When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald
head, asked me across the dinner-table, if that were the
first occasion of my seeing the grounds, I could have done
anything to him that was savage and revengeful.

I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have
not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora.
My impression is, that I dined off Dora entirely, and sent
away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I
talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice,
the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinat-
ing little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless
slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much
the more precious, I thought.

When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone

OF DAVID OOPPERFIELD. 39i

(no other ladies were of the party), I fell into a reverie,
only disturbed by the cruel apprehension that Miss Murd-
stone would disparage me to her. The amiable creature
with the polished head told me a long story, which I think
was about gardening. I think I heard him say, " my gar-
dener,'' several times. I seemed to pay the deepest atten-
tion to him, but I was wandering in a garden of Eden all
the while, with Dora.

My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of
my engrossing affection were revived when we went intc
the drawing-room, by the grim and distant aspect of Miss
Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an unexpected
manner.

"David Copperfield, " said Miss Murdstone, beckouing
me aside into a window. "A word."

I confronted Miss Murdstone alone.

" David Copperfield, " said Miss Murdstone, " I need not
enlarge upon family circumstances. They are not a tempt-
ing subject."

"Far from it, ma'am," I returned.

"Far from it," assented Miss Murdstone. "I do not
wish to revive the memory of past differences, or of past
outrages. I have received outrages from a person — a fe-
male, I am sorry to say, for the credit of my sex — who is
not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust ; and there-
fore I would rather not mention her. "

I felt very fiery on my aunt's account; but I said it
would certainly be better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not
to mention her. I could not hear her disrespectfully men-
tioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in a decided
tone.

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully in-
:iined her head ; then, slowly opening her eyes, resumed :

' David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the
fact, that I formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your
childhood. It may have been a mistaken one, or you may
have ceased to justify it. That is not in question between
as now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, for
some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance
or change. I may have my opinion of you. You may
have your opinion of me."

I inclined my head, in my turn.

"But it is not necessary,3

392 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

these opinions should come into collision here. Under ex-
isting circumstances, it is as well on all accounts that they
should not. As the chances of life have brought us to-
gether again, and may bring us together on other occasions,
I would say let us meet here as distant acquaintances.
Family circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only
meeting on that footing, and it is quite unnecessary that
either of us should make the other the subject of remark.
Do you approve of this? "

"Miss Murdstone," I returned, "I think you and Mr
Murdstone used me very cruelly, and treated my mother
with great unkindness. I shall always think so, as long-
as I live. But I quite agree in what you propose."

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head.
Then, just touching the back of my hand with the tips of
her cold, stiff fingers, she walked away, arranging the little
fetters on her wrists and round her neck : which seemed to
be the same set, in exactly the same state, as when I had
seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss
Murdstone' s nature, of the fetters over a jail-door; sug-
gesting on the outside, to all beholders, what was to be
expected within.

All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the
empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French
language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the
matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! ac-
companying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling
a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I
refused refreshment That my soul recoiled from punch
particularly. JThat when Miss Murdstone took her into
custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her
delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mir-
ror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired
to bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a
crisis of feeble infatuation.

It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would
go and take a stroll down one of those wire-arched walks,
and indulge my passion by dwelling on her image. On my
way through the hall, I encountered her little dog, who
was called Jip— short for Gipsy. I approached him ten-
derly, for 1 loved even him; but he showed his whole set
of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't
hear of the least familiarity.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 393

The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about,
wondering what my feelings of happiness would be, if I
could ever beeome engaged to this dear wonder. As to
marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was almost
as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little
EniTy. To be allowed to call her "Dora," to write to her,
to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that
when she was with other people she was yet mindful of
me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition— I am
sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt what-
ever that I was a lackadaisical young spooney ; but there
was a purity of heart in all this still, that prevents my
having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let me
laugh as I may.

I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner,
and met her. I tingle again from head to foot as my rec-
ollection turns that corner, and my pen shakes in my hand.

"You — are— out early, Miss Spenlow," said I.

"It's so stupid at home," she replied, "and Miss Murd-
stone is so absurd! She talks such nonsense about its
being necessary for the day to be aired, before I come out.
Aired! " (She laughed, here, in the most melodious man-
ner.) "On a Sunday morning, when I don't practise, I
must do something. So I told papa last night I must come
out. Besides, it's the brightest time of the whole day.
Don't you think so? "

I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammer-
ing) that it was very bright to me then, though it had been
very dark to me a minute before.

"Do you mean a compliment? " said Dora, "or that the
weather has really changed? "

I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant
no compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not
aware of any change having taken place in the weather. It
was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully ; to
clench the explanation.

I never saw such curls — how could I, for there never
were such curls! — as those she shook out to hide her
blushes. As to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was
on the top o* the curls, if I could only have hung it up in
my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession
it would have been !

"You have iust come home from Paris," said L

394 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

u Yes," said she. " Have you ever been there? "

"No."

"Oh! I hope you'll go soon. You would like it so
much ! "

Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my counte-
nance. That she should hope I would go, that she should
think it possible I could go, was insupportable. I depreci-
ated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I wouldn't leave
England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly
consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she
was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came run-
ning along the walk to our relief.

He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking
at me. She took him up in her arms— oh my goodness ! —
and caressed him, but he insisted upon barking still. He
wouldn't let me touch him, when I tried ; and then she
beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the
pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his
blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand,
and still growled within himself like a little double-bass.
At length he was quiet — well he might be with her dim-
pled chin upon his head ! — and we walked away to look at
a greenhouse.

" You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are
you?" said Dora. — "My pet!"

(The two last words were to the dog Oh, if they had
only been to me !)

" No," I replied. " Not at all so. »

"She is a tiresome creature," said Dora, pouting. "I
can't think what papa can have been about, when he chose
such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants
a protector ! I am sure / don't want a protector. Jip can
protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone, — can't
you, Jip dear? "

He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a
head.

"Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure
she is no such thing — is she, Jip? We are not going to
confide in any such cross people, Jip and I. We mean to
bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our
own friends, instead of having them found out for us —
don't we, Jip? "

Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a

OF DAVID COPPERFIELb. 395

tea-kettle when it sings. As for ine, every word was a new
heap of fetters, rivetted above the last.

" It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that
we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like
Miss Murdstone, always following us about — isn't it, Jip?
Never mind, Jip. We won't be confidential, and we'll
make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and
we'll tease her, and not please her, — won't we, Jip? "

If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone
down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability be
fore me of grazing them, and of being presently ejected
from the premises besides. But, by good fortune the
greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us
to it.

It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We
loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to
admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the
same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly,
to smell the flowers ; and if we were not all three in Fairy-
land, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at
this day, strikes me with a half comical, half serious won-
der as to what change has come over me in a moment ; and
then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of
curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender
arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.

Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us
here ; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrin-
kles in it filled with hair powder, to Dora to be kissed.
Then she took Dora's arm in hers, and marched us in to
breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral.

How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I
don't know. But, I perfectly remember that I sat swilling
sea until my whole nervous ssytem, if I had had any in
those days, must have gone by the board. By-and-by we
went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and
me in the pew ; but I heard her sing, and the congregation
vanished. A sermon was delivered — about Dora, of course
— and I am afraid that is all I know of the service.

We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family
dinner of four, and an evening of looking over books and
pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily before her, and
her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah ! little did
Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after

396 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

dinner that day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his
head, how fervently I was embracing him, in my fancy, as
his son-in-law ! Little did he think, when I took leave of
him at night, that he had just given his full consent to my
being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings
on his head !

We departed early hi the morning, for we had a Salvage
case coming on in the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather
accurate knowledge of the whole science of navigation, in
which (as we couldn't be expected to know much about
those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated
two old Trinity Masters, for charity's sake, to come and
help him out. Dora was at the breakfast-table to make the
tea again, however ; and I had the melancholy pleasure of
taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on
the door- step with Jip in her arms.

What the Admiralty was to me that day ; what nonsense
I made of our case in my mind, as I listened to it; how I
saw " Dora " engraved upon the blade of the silver oar
which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high
jurisdiction; and how I felt, when Mr. Spenlow went home
without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take
me back again), as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship
to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a des-
ert island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If
that sleepy old Court could rouse itself, and present in any
visible form the day-dreams I have had in it about Dora, it
"would reveal my truth.

I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day
alone, but day after day, from week to week, and term to
term. I went there, not to attend to what was going on,
but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought
upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before
me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (re-
membering Dora), how it was that married people could
ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the Prerogative
cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left
to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately
have taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of
my passion, I bought four sumptuous waistcoats — not for
myself; I had no pride in them; for Dora — and took to
wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and laid
the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 397

boots I wore at that period could only be produced and
compared with the natural size of my feet, they would
show what the state of my heart was, in a most affecting
manner.

And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act
of homage to Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the
hope of seeing her. Not only was I soon as well known
on the Norwood Eoad as the postmen on that beat, but
I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets
where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar
like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and
again, long after I was quite knocked up. Sometimes, at
long intervals, and on rare occasions, I saw her. Perhaps
I saw her glove waved in a carriage window ; perhaps I
met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way,
and spoke to her. In the latter case I was always very
miserable afterwards, to think that I had said nothing to
the purpose ; or that she had no idea of the extent of my
devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was al-
ways looking out, as may be supposed, for another invita-
tion to Mr. Spenlow's house. I was always being disap-
pointed, for I got none.

Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration ; for
when this attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had
not had the courage to write more explicitly even to Agnes,
than that I had been to Mr. Spenlow's house, "whose fam-
ily," I added, "consists of one daughter;"— I say Mrs.
Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even
in that early stage, she found it out. She came up to me
one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being then
afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could
oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with
rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of
cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint ; — or,
if I had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which
was the next best. It was not, she remarked, so palatable
to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even
heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in
the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which
(that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any
improper use) she began to take in my presence.

" Cheer up, Sir," said Mrs. Crupp. " I can't abear to see
you so, Sir : I'm a mother myself "

398 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to
wz/self, but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp., as benignly as was in
my power.

"Come, Sir," said Mrs. Crupp. "Excuse me. I know
what it is, Sir. There's a young lady in the case."

"Mrs. Crupp?" I returned, reddening.

"Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, Sir!" said Mrs.
Crupp, nodding encouragement. " Never say die, Sir ! If
She don't smile upon you, there's a many as will. You're
a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr. Copperfull, and
you must learn your walue, Sir."

Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull : firstly, no
doubt, because it was not my name ; and secondly, I am in-
clined to think, in some indistinct association with a wash-
ing-day.

"What makes you suppose there is any young lady in
the case, Mrs. Crupp? " said I.

"Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of
feeling, "I'm a mother myself."

For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon
her nankeen bosom, and fortify herself against returning
pain with sips of her medicine. At length she spoke agaia.

"When the present set were took for you by your dear
aunt, Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, " my remark were,
I had now found summun I could care for. ' Thank
Ev'in! ' were the expression, ' I have now found summun
I can care for!' — You don't eat enough, Sir, nor yet
drink."

"Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs,
€rupp? " said I.

"Sir," said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to sever-
ity, " I've laundressed other young gentlemen besides your-
self. A young gentleman may be over-careful of himself,
or he may be under-careful of himself. He may brush his
hair too regular, or too unregular. He may wear his boots
much too large for him, or much too small. That is ac-
cording as the young gentleman has his original character
formed. But let him go to which extreme he may, Sir.
there's a young lady in both of 'em."

Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined man-
ner, that I had not an inch of 'vantage ground left.

" It was but the gentleman which died here before your-
self," said Mrs. Crupp, "that fell in love — with a barmaid

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 399

—and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much
swelled by drinking."

"Mrs. Crupp," said I, "I must beg you not to connect
the young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of
that sort, if you please."

"Mr. Copperfull," returned Mrs. Crupp, "I'm a mother
myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, Sir, if I in-
trude. I should never wish to intrude where I were not
welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. Copper-
full, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, Sir, to keep a
good heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to
take to something, Sir," said Mrs. Crupp, "if you was to
take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it
divert your mind, and do you good."

With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very care-
ful of the brandy — which was all gone — thanked me with
a majestic curtsey, and retired. As her figure disappeared
into the gloom of the entry, this counsel certainly pre-
sented itself to my mind in the light of a slight liberty on
Mrs. Crupp' s part; but, at the same time, I was content to
receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise,
and a warning in future to keep my secret better.

CHAPTEE XXVII

TOMMY TRADDLES.

It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's ad-
vice, and, perhaps, for no better reason than because there
was a certain similarity in the sound of the word skittles
and Traddles, that it came into my head, next day, to go
and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was
more than out, and he lived in a little street near the Vet-
erinary College at Camden Town, which was principally
tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction
informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live don-
keys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their
private apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a
direction to the academic gvo\e '.u question, I set out, the
same afternoon, to visit my old schoolfellow.

400 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

1 found that the street was not as desirable a one as I
could have wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The
inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to throw any
little trifles they were not in want of, into the road : which
not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on ac-
count of the cabbage -leaves. The refuse was not wholly
vegetable either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up
saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various
stages of decomposition, as I was looking out for the num-
ber I wanted.

The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the
days when I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An in-
describable character of faded gentility that attached to
the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses
in the street — though they were all built on one monoto-
nous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blunder-
ing boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet
got out of his cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks — re-
minded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Happen-
ing to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon
milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber
more forcibly yet.

"Now," said the milkman to a very youthful servant-
girl. " Has that there little bill of mine been heerd on? "

"Oh, master says he'll attend to it immediate," was the
reply.

" Because, " said the milkman, going on as if he had re-
ceived no answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone,
rather for the edification of somebody within the house,
than of the youthful servant — an impression which was
strengthened by his manner of glaring down the passage —
" Because that there little bill has been running so long,
that I begin to believe it's run away altogether, and never
won't be heerd of. Now, I'm not a going to stand it, you
know ! " said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the
house,, and glaring down the passage.

As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by-the-by,
there never was a greater anomaly. His deportment would
have been fierce in a butcher or a brandy-merchant.

The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she
seemed to me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur
that it would be attended to immediate.

" I tell you what," aaicl the milkman, looking hard at

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 401

her for the fivst time, and taking her by the chin, "are you
fond of milk? "

"Yes, I likes it," she replied.

"Good," said the milkman. "Then you won't have
none to-morrow. D'ye hear? Not a fragment of milk
you won't have to-morrow."

I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved, by the
prospect of having any to-day. The milkman, after shak-
ing his head at her, darkly, released her chin, and with
anything rather than good-will opened his can, and depos-
ited the usual quantit}^ in the family jug. This done, he
went away, muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade
next door, in a vindictive shriek.

"Does Mr. Traddles live here? " I then inquired.

A mysterious voice from the end of the passage re-
plied "Yes." Upon which the youthful servant replied
"Yes."

" Is he at home ?" said I.

Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative,
and again the servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in,
and in pursuance of the servant's directions walked up-
stairs ; conscious, as I passed the back parlour-door, that
I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably belonging to
the mysterious voice.

When I got to the top of the stairs — the house was only
a story high above the ground floor — Traddles was on the
landing to meet me. He was delighted to see me, and
gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to his little room.
It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat,
though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw ;
for there was a sofa-bedstead * in it, and his blacking-
brushes and blacking were among his books — on the top
shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered with
papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat I looked
at nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to
the prospect of a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat
down — and this, too; was a faculty confirmed in me in the
old Mieawber times. Various ingenious arrangements he
had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, and the
accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth,
particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of
the same Traddles who used to make models of elephants'
dens in writing-paper to put flies in; and to comfort him-
26

402 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

self, under ill-usage, with the memorable works of art 1
have so often mentioned.

In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up
with a large white cloth . I could not make out what that was .

"Traddles," said T, shaking hands with him again, after
I had sat down. "I am delighted to see you."

"I am delighted to see you, Copperfleld," he returned.
" I am very glad indeed to see you. It was because I was
thoroughly glad to see you when we met in Ely Place, and
was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me, that I gave
you this address instead of my address at chambers."

"Oh! You have chambers? " said I.

" Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and
the fourth of a clerk," returned Traddles. "Three others
and myself unite to have a set of chambers — to look busi-
ness-like— and we quarter the clerk too. Half-a-crown a
week he costs me."

His old simple character and good temper, and some-
thing of his old unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at
me in the smile with which he made this explanation.

"It's not because I have the least pride, Copperfleld,
you understand," said Traddles, "that I don't usually give
my address here. It's only on account of those who come
to me, who might not like to come here. For myself, I am
fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and it
would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything
else."

" You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed
me?" said I.

"Why, yes," said Traddles, rubbing his hands, slowly
over one another, " I am reading for the bar. The fact is, I
have just begun to keep my terms, after rather a long delay.
It's some time since I was articled, but the payment of
that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull ! "
said Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out.

"Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles,
as I sit here looking at you? " I asked him.

"No," said he.

"That sky-blue suit you used to wear."

" Lord, to be sure ! " cried Traddles, laughing. " Tight
in the arms and legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those
were happy times, weren't they? "

"I think our schoolmaster* ^ight have made them hap*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 403

pier, without doing any harm to any of us, I acknowl-
edge," I returned.

••Perhaps he might," said Traddles. "But dear me,
there was a good deal of fun going on. Do you remember
the nights in the bed-room? When we used to have the
suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha,
ha, ha ! And do you remember when I got caned for cry-
ing about Mr. Mell? Old Creakle ! I should like to see
him again, too ! "

k'He was a brute to you, Traddles," said I, indignantly;
for his good humour made me feel as if I had seen him
beaten but yesterday.

"Do you think so?" returned Traddles. "Really?
Perhaps he was, rather. But it's all over, a long while.
Old Creakle!"

" You were brought up by an uncle, then? " said I.

"Of course I was!" said Traddles. "The one I was
always going to write to. And always didn't, eh! Ha,
ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. He died soon after I
left school. "

"Indeed!"

" Yes. He was a retired — what do you call it? — draper
— cloth -merchant — and had made me his heir. But he
didn't like me when I grew up."

" Do you really mean that? " said I. He was so com-
posed, that I fancied he must have some other meaning.

"Oh dear yes, Copperfield! I mean it," replied Trad-
dles. " It was an unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me
at all. He said I wasn't at all what he expected, and so
he married his housekeeper."

"And what did you do? " I asked.

"I didn't do anything in particular," said Traddles, "I
lived with them, waiting to be put out in the world, until
his gout unfortunately flew to his stomach — and so he died,
and so she married a voung man, and so I wasn't provided
for."

"Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all? "

" Oh dear yes ! " said Traddles. " 1 got fifty pounds.
I had never been brought up to any profession, and at first
I was at a loss what to do for myself. However, I began,
with the assistance of the son of a professional man, who
had been to Salem House — Yawler, with his nose on one
side. Do you recollect him? "

404 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

No. He had not been there with me; all the noses
were straight, in my day.

"It don't matter," said Traddles. "I began, by means
of his assistance, to copy law writings. That didn't an-
swer very well; and then I began to state cases for them,
and make abstracts, and do that sort of work. For I am
a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the
way of doing such things pithily. Well ! That put it in
my head to enter myself as a law student ; and that ran
away with all that was left of the fifty pounds. Yawler
recommended me to one or two other offices, however — '
Mr. Waterbrook's for one — and I got a good many jobs.
I was fortunate enough, too, to become acquainted with a
person in the publishing way, who was getting up an Ency-
clopaedia, and he set me to work ; and, indeed " (glancing
at his table), " I am at work for him at this minute. I am
not a bad compiler, Copperfield," said Traddles, preserving
the same air of cheerful confidence in all he said, " but I
have no invention at all; not a particle. I suppose there
never was a young man with less originality than I have."

As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to
this as a matter of course, I nodded ; and he went on, with
the same sprightly patience — I can find no better expres-
sion— as before.

"So, by little and little, and not, living high, I managed
to scrape up the hundred pounds at last," said Traddles;
"and thank Heaven that's paid — though it was — though it
certainly was," said Traddles, wincing again as if he had
had another tooth out, " a pull. I am living by the sort
of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these
days, to get connected with some newspaper : which would
almost be the making of my fortune. Now, Copperfield,
you are so exactly what you used to be, with that agreeable
face, and it's so pleasant to see you, that I sha'n't conceal
anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged. "

Engaged ! Oh Dora !

"She is a curate's daughter," said Traddles; "one of
ten, down in Devonshire. Yes! " For he saw me glance,
involuntarily, at the prospect on the inkstand. "That's
the church ! You come round here, to the left, out of this
gate," tracing his finger along the inkstand, "and exactly
where I hold this pen, there stands the house — facing, you
understand, towards the ehureh."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 405

The delight with which he entered into these particulars,
did not fully present itself to me until afterwards ; for my
selfish thoughts were making a ground-plan of Mr. Spen-
low;s house and garden at the same moment.

" She is such a dear girl! " said Traddles ; " a little older
than me, but the dearest girl! I told you I was going out
of town? I have been down there. I walked there, and
I walked back, and I had the most delightful time! I
dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement,
but our motto is ' Wait and hope ! ' We always say that.
; Wait and hope,' we always say. And she would wait,
Copperfield,'till she was sixty — any age you can mention —
for me ! "

Traddles rose from his chair, and with a triumphant
smile, put his hand upon the white cloth I had observed.

"However," he said; "it's not that we haven't made a
beginning towards housekeeping. No, no; we have begun.
We must get on by degrees, but we have begun. Here,"
drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, " are two
pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot and
stand, she bought herself. You put that in a parlour-
window," said Traddles, falling a little back from it to
survey it with the greater admiration, " with a plant in it,
and — and there you are ! This little round table with the
marble top (it's two feet ten in circumference), I" bought.
You want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody
comes to see you or your wife, and wants a place to stand
a cup of tea upon, and — and there you are again ! " said
Traddles. " It's an admirable piece of workmanship— firm
as a rock ! "

I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the
covering as carefully as he had removed it.

"It's not a great deal towards the furnishing," said
Traddles, " but it's something. The table-cloths, and pil-
low-cases, and articles of that kind, are what discourage
me most, Copperfield. So does the ironmongery — candle-
boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of necessaries — because
those things tell, and mount up. However, ' wait and
hope! ' And I assure you she's the dearest girl! "

" I am quite certain of it," said I.

"In the meantime," said Traddles, coming back to his
chair ; " and this is the end of my prosing about myself, I
get on as well as I can. I don't make much, but I don't

406 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

spend much. In general, I board with the people down-
stairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr.
and Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are
excellent company."

" My dear Traddles ! /} I quickly exclaimed. " What are
you talking about ! "

Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what / was
talking about.

"Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!" I repeated. "Why, I am
intimately acquainted with them ! "

An opportune double-knock at the door, which I knew
well from old experience in Windsor Terrace, and which
nobody but Mr. Micawber could ever have knocked at that
door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to their being my
old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord to walk
up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the banister; and
Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed — his tights, his stick, his
shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever — came
into the room with a genteel and youthful air.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles," said Mr. Micawber,
with the old roll in his voice, as he checked himself in
humming a soft tune. "I was not aware that there was
any individual, alien to this tenement, in your sanctum."

Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his
shirt-collar.

" How do you do, Mr. Micawber? " said I.

"Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "you are exceedingly oblig-
ing. I am in statu quo."

"And Mrs. Micawber? " I pursued.

"Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "she is also, thank God, in
statu quo."

" And the children, Mr. Micawber? "

"Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "I rejoice to reply that they
are, likewise, in *he enjoyment of salubrity."

All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the
least, though he had stood face to face with me. But now,
seeing me smile, he examined my features with more atten-
tion, fell back, cried, " Is it possible ! Have I the pleasure
of again beholding Copperfield ! " and shook me by both,
hands with the utmost fervour.

"Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles! " said Mr. Micawber, "to
think that I should find you acquainted with the friend of
my youth, the companion of earlier days ! My dear ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 407

calling over the banisters to Mrs. Micawber, while Trad-
dies looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this de-
scription of me. "Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles's
apartment, whom he wishes to have the pleasure of pre-
senting to you, my love ! "

Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands
with me again.

" And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield? "
said Mr. Micawber, " and all the circle at Canterbury? "

"I have none but good accounts of them," said I.

"I am most delighted to hear it," said Mr. Micawber.
"It was at Canterbury where we last met. Within the
shadow, I may figuratively say, of that religious edifice,
immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently the resort
of pilgrims from the remotest corners of — in short," said
Mr. Micawber, "in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Cathedral."

I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking
as volubly as he could ; but not, I thought, without show-
ing, by some marks of concern in his countenance, that he
was sensible of sounds in the next room, as of Mrs. Micaw-
ber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting
drawers that were uneasy in their action.

" You find us, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, with one
eye on Traddles, " at present established, on what may be
designated as a small and unassuming scale ; but, you are
aware that I have, in the course of my career, surmounted
difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no stranger
to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when
it has been requisite that I should pause, until certain ex-
pected events should turn up ; when it has been necessary
that I should fall back, before making what I trust I shall
not be accused of presumption in terming — a spring. The
present is one of those momentous stages in the life of
man. You find me, fallen back, for a spring; and I have
every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly
be the result."

I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber
came in ; a little more slatternly than she used to be, or
so she seemed now, to my unaccustomed eyes, but still
with some preparation of herself for company, and with a
pair of brown gloves on.

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me.

408 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Here is a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who
wishes to renew his acquaintance with you. "

It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led
gently up to his announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being
in a delicate state of health, was overcome by it, and was
taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber was obliged, in great
trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in the back
yard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. She
presently revived, however, and was really pleased to see
me. We had half-an-hour's talk, all together; and I asked
her about the twins, who, she said, were "grown great
creatures;" and after Master and Miss Micawber, whom
she described as "absolute giants," but they were not pro-
duced on that occasioD.

Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to
dinner. I should not have been averse to do so, but that
I imagined I detected trouble, and calculation relative to
the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber' s eye. I
therefore pleaded another engagement ; and observing that
Mrs. Micawber' s spirits were immediately lightened, I re-
sisted all persuasion to forego it.

But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that
before I could think of leaving, they must appoint a day
when they would come and dine with me. The occupations
to which Traddles stood pledged, rendered it necessary to
fix a somewhat distant one ; but an appointment was made
for the purpose, that suited us all, and then I took my leave.

Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer
way than that by which I had come, accompanied me to
the corner of the street ; being anxious (he explained to
me) to say a few words to an old friend, in confidence.

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "I need
hardly tell you that to have beneath our roof, under exist-
ing circumstances, a mind like that which gleams — if I
may be allowed the expression— which gleams— in your
friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a wash-
erwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlour-
window, dwelling next door, and a Bow Street officer resid-
ing over the way, you may imagine that his society is a
source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I
am at present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of
corn upon commission. It is not an avocation of a remun-
erative description — in other words, it does not pay — and

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 409

some temporary embarrassments of a pecuniary nature have
been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to add
that I have now an immediate prospect of something turn-
ing up (I am not at liberty to say in what direction), which
I trust will enable me to provide, permanently, both for
myself and for your friend Traddles, in whom I have an
unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, be prepared to
hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health which ren-
ders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ulti-
mately made to those pledges of affection which — in short,
to the infantine group. Mrs. Micawber' s family have been
so good as to express their dissatisfaction with this state
of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware
it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition
of feeling with scorn, and with defiance ! "

Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left
me.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MR. MICAWBER'S GAUNTLET.

Until the day arrived en which I was to entertain my
newly-found old friends, I lived principally on Dora and
coffee. In my love-lorn condition, my appetite lan-
guished; and I was glad of it, for I felt as though it
would have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a
natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of walking
exercise I took, was not in this respect attended with its
usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the
fresh air. I have my doubts, too, founded on the acute
experience acquired at this period of my life, whether a
sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely
in any human subject who is always in torment from tight
boots. I think the extremities require to be at peace be-
fore the stomach will conduct itself with vigour.

On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not
repeat my former extensive preparations. I merely pro-
vided a pair of soles, a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-
pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into rebellion on my first bash-
ful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint,

410 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and said, with a dignified sense of injury, "No! No, Sir':
You will not ask me sich a thing, for you are better ac-
quainted with me than to suppose me capable of doing
what I cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own feel-
ings ! " But, in the end, a compromise was effected ; and
Mrs. Crupp consented to achieve this feat, on condition
that I dined from home for a fortnight afterwards.

And here I may remark, that what I underwent from
Mrs. Crupp, in consequence of the tyranny she established
over me, was dreadful. I never was so much afraid of
anyone. We made a compromise of everything. If I hes-
itated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which
was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the
shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell
impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls,
and she appeared at last — which was not by any means to
be relied upon — she would appear with a reproachful as-
pect, sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand
upon her nankeen bosom, and become so ill, that I was
glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or anything else, to get rid
of her. If I objected to having my bed made at five
o'clock in the afternoon — which I do still think an uncom-
fortable arrangement — one motion of her hand towards the
same nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to
make me falter an apology. In short, I would have done
anything in an honourable way rather than give Mrs. Crupp
offence ; and she was the terror of my life.

I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-
party, in preference to re-engaging the handy young man ;
against whom I had conceived a prejudice, in consequence
of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday morning, in a
waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been
missing since the former occasion. The " young gal " was
re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she should only
bring in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-
place, beyond the outer door ; where a habit of sniffing she
had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where
her retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility.

Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be
compounded by Mr. Micawber ; having provided a bottle of
lavender-water, two wax candles, a paper of mixed pins,
and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. Micawber in her toilette,
n+i my dressing-table; having also caused the fire in my

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 411

bed-room to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber's convenience;
and having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited
the result with composure.

At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived to-
gether. Mr. Micawber with more shirt-collar than usual,
and a new ribbon to his eye-glass ; Mrs. Micawber with her
cap in a whity-brown paper parcel ; Traddles carrying the
parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They
were all delighted with my residence. When I conducted
Mrs. Micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale
on which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures,
that she called Mr. Micawber to come in and look.

"My dear Copperfleld," said Mr. Micawber, "this is
luxurious. This is a way of life which reminds me of the
period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs
Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at
the Hymeneal altar."

"He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfleld," said
Mrs. Micawber, archly. "He cannot answer for others."

"My dear," returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seri-
ousness, " I have no desire to answer for others. I am too
well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate,
you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been
reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at
length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a com-
plicated nature , I understand your allusion, my love. I
regret it, but I can bear it."

" Micawber ! " exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears.
" Have I deserved this ! I, who never have deserted you ;
who never will desert you, Micawber ! "

"My love," said Mr. Micawber, much affected, "you
will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfleld will,
I am sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded
spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the Minion
of Power — in other words, with a ribald Turncock attached
to the waterworks — and will pity, not condemn, its ex-
cesses."

Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and
pressed my hand; leaving me to infer from this broken
allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut off
that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment
of the company's rates.

To divert his thoughts -f'rorr this melancholy subject, I

412 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl
of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despond-
ency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never
saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance
of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and
the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that after-
noon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out
of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and
mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, in-
stead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest
posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether
it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the
pins, or the fire, or the wax candles, but she came out of
my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark
was never gayer than that excellent woman.

I suppose — I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose —
that Mrs. Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill.
Because we broke down at that point. The leg of mutton
came up very red within, and very pale without : besides
having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled
over it, as if it had had a fall into the ashes of that re-
markable kitchen fireplace. But we were not in a condi-
tion to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy
forasmuch as the " young gal " had dropped it all upon the
stairs — where it remained, by-the-by, in a long train, until
it was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was
a delusive pie : the crust being like a disappointing head,
phrenologically speaking : full of lumps and bumps, with
nothing particular underneath, In short, the banquet was
such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy —
about the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about
Dora — if I had not been relieved b}- the great good-humour
of my company, and by a bright suggestion from Mr.
Micawber.

"My dear friend Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "ac-
cidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in
families not regulated by that pervading influence which
sanctities while it enhances the — a — I would say in short,
by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife,
they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne
with philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty
of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their
way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 413

of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young
person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put
it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily re-
paired. "

There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morn-
ing rasher of bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twink-
ling, and immediately applied ourselves to carrying Mr.
Micawber' s idea into effect. The divison of labour to
which he had referred was this : — Traddles cut the mutton
into slices ; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this
sort to perfection) covered them with pepper, mustard,
salt, and cayenne ; I put them on the gridiron, turned them
with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. Micawber' s di-
rection ; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred,
some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. When we
had slices enough done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our
sleeves still tucked up at the wrists, more slices sputtering
and blazing on the fire, and our attention divided between
the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing.

What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of
it, the bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after
it, the frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp
slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy,
so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of
such a tempting noise and savour, we reduced the leg of
mutton to the bone. My own appetite came back miracu-
lously. I am ashamed to record it, but I really believe I
forgot Dora for a little while. I am satisfied that Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more, if
they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as
heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked.
Indeed we all did, all at once ; and I dare say there never
was a greater success.

We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all
busily engaged, in our several departments, endeavouring
to bring the last batch of slices to a state of perfection that
should crown the feast, when I was aware of a strange pres-
ence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the
staid Littimer, standing hat in hand before me.

" What's the matter! " I involuntarily asked.

u I beg your pardon, Sir, I was directed to come in. Is
my master not here, Sir? "

"No."

414 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Have you not seen him, Sir? "

" No ; don't yon come from him? n

" Not immediately so, Sir. n

"Did he tell you you would find him here? "

" Not exactly so, Sir. But I should think he might be
here to-morrow, as he has not been here to-day."

" Is he coming up from Oxford? "

" I beg, Sir," he returned respectfully, " that you will be
seated, and allow me to do this." With which he took the
fork from my unresisting hand, and bent over the gridiron,
as if his whole attention were concentrated on it.

We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say?
by the appearance of Steerf orth himself ; but we became in
a moment the meekest of the meek before his respectable
serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to show
that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the
handle of a hastily -concealed fork sticking out of the bos-
som of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micaw-
ber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel lan-
guor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair,
and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion at the
table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head
of my own table ; and hardly ventured to glance at the re-
spectable phenomenon, who had come from Heaven knows
where, to put my establishment to rights.

Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and
gravely handed it round. We all took some, but our ap-
preciation of it was gone, and we merely made a show of
eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates, he
noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. He took
that off, too, when it was done with ; cleared the table ;
piled everything on the dumb-waiter ; gave us our wine-
glasses ; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter
into the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner,
and he never raised his eyes from what he was about.
Yet, his very elbows, when he had his back towards me,
seemed to teem with the expression of his fixed opinion
that I was extremely young.

" Can I do anything more, Sir? "

I thanked him and said, No ; but would he take no din-
ner himself ?

"None, I am obliged to you, Sir."

"Is Mr. Steerf orth coming from Oxford?"

01 DAVID COPFERFIELD. 415

" I beg your pardon, Sir? "

" Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford? "

"I should imagine that he might be here to-morrow,
Sir. I rather thought he might have been here to-day, Sir.
The mistake is mine no doubt, Sir."

" If you should see him first " said I.

"If you'll excuse me, Sir, I don't think I shall see him
first."

"In case you do," said I, "pray say that I am sorry he
was not here to-day, as an old schoolfellow of his was
here '

" Indeed, Sir ! " and he divided a bow between me and
Traddles, with a glance at the latter.

He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn
hope of saying something naturally — which I never could,
to this man — I said :

"Oh! Littimer!"

"Sir!"

"Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time? ,J

"Not particularly so, Sir."

" You saw the boat completed? "

"Yes, Sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the
boat completed."

" I know ! " He raised his eyes to mine respectfully.
"Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose? "

"I really can't say, Sir. I think— but I really can't
say, Sir. I wish you good night, Sir."

He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful
bow with which he followed these words, and disappeared.
My visitors seemed to breathe more freely when he was
gone; but my own relief was very great, for besides the
constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of being
at a disadvantage which I always had in this man's pres-
ence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers
that I had mistrusted his master, and I could not repress
a vague uneasy dread that he might find it out. How was
it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I always did
feel as if this man were finding me out?

Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was
blended with a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing
Steerforth himself, by bestowing many encomiums on the
absent Littimer as a most respectable fellow, and a thor-
oughly admirable servant Mr. Micawber, I may remark,

416 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

had taken his full share of the general bow, and had re
ceived it with infinite condescension.

"But punch, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber,
tasting it, "like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it
is at the present moment in high flavour. My love, will
you give me your opinion? "

Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent.

"Then I will drink," said Mr. Micawber, "if my friend
Copperfield will permit me to take that social liberty, to
the days when my friend Copperfield and myself were
younger, and fought our way in the world side by side. 1
may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have
sung together before now, that

' We twa hae run about the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine '

— in a figurative point of view — on several occasions. I
am not exactly aware," said Mr. Micawber, with the old
roll in his voice, and the old indescribable air of saying
something genteel, " what gowans may be, but I have no
doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have
taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible."

Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull
at his punch. So we all did : Traddles evidently lost in
wondering at what distant time Mr. Micawber and I could
possibly have been comrades in the battle of the world.

" Ahem ! " said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and
warming with the punch and with the fire. " My dear,
another glass? "

Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little; but we
couldn't allow that, so it was a glassful.

"As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield, /;
said Mrs. Micawber, sipping her punch, "Mr. Traddles
being a part of our domesticity, I should much like to have
your opinion on Mr. Micawber' s prospects. For corn,"
said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, "as I have repeat-
edly said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is
not remunerative. Commission to the extent of two and
ninepence in a fortnight cannot, however limited our ideas,
be considered remunerative."

We were all agreed upon that.

"Then," said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on
taking a clear view of things, and keeping Mr- Micawber

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 417

straight by her woman's wisdom, when he might otherwise
go a little crooked, " then I ask myself this question. If
corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be
relied upon? Not at all. We have turned our attention
to that experiment, on the suggestion of my family, and
we find it fallacious."

Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands
in his pockets, eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as
much as to say that the case was very clearly put.

"The articles of corn and coals," said Mrs. Micawber,
still more argumentatively, "being equally out of the
question, Mr. Copperfield, I naturally look round the
world, and say, ' What is there in which a person of Mr.
Micawber' s talent is likely to succeed? ' And I exclude
the doing anything on commission, because commission is
not a certainty. What is best suited to a person of Mr.
Micawber' s peculiar temperament is, I am convinced, a
certainty."

Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur,
that this great discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micaw-
ber, and that it did him much credit.

"I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield,"
said Mrs. Micawber, "that 1 have long felt the brewing
business to be particularly adapted to Mr. Micawber.
Look at Barclay and Perkins ! Look at Truman, Hanbury,
and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing that Mr.
Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is cal-
culated to shine ; and the profits, I am told, are e-xoR—
mous ! But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into those firms
— which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his
services even in an inferior capacity — what is the use of
dwelling upon that idea? None. I may have a convic-
tion that Mr. Micawber' s manners "

"Hem! Really, my dear," interposed Mr. Micawber.

"My love, be silent," said Mrs. -Micawber, laying har
brown glove on his hand. " I may have a conviction, Mr.
Copperfield, that Mr. Micawber' s manners peculiarly qual-
ify him for the banking business. I may argue within my-
self, that if /had a deposit at a banking-house, the man-
ners of Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house,
would inspire confidence, and must extend the connexion.
But if the various banking-houses refuse to avail themselves
of Mr. Micawber' s abilities, or receive the offer of them with
27

418 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon that idea?
None. As to originating a banking business, I may know
that there are members of my family who, if they chose to
place their money in Mr. Micawber's hands, might found
an establishment of that description. But if they do not
choose to place their money in Mr. Micawber's hands —
which they don't — what is the use of that? Again I con-
tend that we are no farther advanced than we were before."

I shook my head, and said, "Not a bit." Traddles also
shook his head, and said, "Not a bit."

" What do I deduce from this? " Mrs. Micawber went
on to say, still with the same air of putting a case lucidly.
"What is the conclusion, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to
which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in saying,
it is clear that we must live ? "

I answered, " Not at all ! " and Traddles answered, " Not
at all ! " and I found myself afterwards sagely adding,
alone, that a person must either live or die.

"Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. "It is precisely
that. And the fact is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we
can not live without something widely different from exist-
ing circumstances shortly turning up. Now I am con-
vinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micaw-
ber several times of late, that things cannot be expected to
turn up of themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to
turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that
opinion."

Both Traddles and I applauded it highly.

"Very well," said Mrs. Micawber. "Then what do I
recommend? Here is Mr. Micawber with a variety of
qualifications — with great talent "

" Really, my love," said Mr. Micawber.

"Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr.
Micawber, with a variety of qualifications, with great tal-
ent—/should say, with genius, but that may be the parti-
ality of a wife "

Traddles and I both murmured "No."

" And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable posi-
tion or employment. Where does that responsibility rest?
Clearly on society. Then I would make a fact so dis-
graceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it
right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said
Mrs. Micawber, forcibly, "that what Mr. Micawber has to

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 419

do, is to throw down the gauntlet to society, and say, in
effect, ' Show me who will take that up. Let the party
immediately step forward. ' '

I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be
done.

"By advertising," said Mrs. Micawber— "in all the pa-
pers. It appears to me, that what Mr. Micawber has to
do, in justice to himself, in justice to his family, and I
will even go so far as to say in justice to society, by which
he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in all the
papers ; to describe himself plainly as so-and-so, with such
and such qualifications, and to put it thus: 'Now employ
me, on remunerative terms, and address, post-paid, to
W. M., Post Office, Camden Town.' "

"This idea of Mrs. Micawber's, my dear Copperfield,"
said Mr. Micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front
of his chin, and glancing at me sideways, " is, in fact, the
Leap to which I alluded, when I last had the pleasure of
seeing you."

"Advertising is rather expensive," I remarked, dubi-
ously.

"Exactly so! " said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same
logical air. "Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I
have made the identical observation to Mr. Micawber. It
is for that reason especially, that I think Mr. Micawber
ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself, in jus-
tice to his family, and in justice to society) to raise a cer-
tain sum of money — on a bill."

Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his
eyeglass, and cast his eyes up at the ceiling ; but I thought
him observant of Traddles, too, who was looking at the fire.
"If no member of my family," said Mrs. Micawber, "is
possessed of sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill
—I believe there is a better business term to express what

I mean "

Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling,
suggested "Discount."

"To discount that bill," said Mrs. Micawber, "then my
opinion is, that Mr. Micawber should go into the City,
should take that bill into the Money Market, and should
dispose of it for what he can get. If the individuals in the
Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great sac-
rifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. I

420 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

view it, steadily, as an investment. I recommend Mr.
Micawber, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to do the same; to
regard it as an investment which is snre of return, and to
make up his mind to any sacrifice."

I felt, but I am .sure I don't know why, that this was
self -den ying and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered
a murmur to that effect. T raddles, who took his tone from
me, did likewise, still looking at the lire.

"I will not," said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch,
and gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to
her withdrawal to my bedroom : " I will not protract these
remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber's pecuniary affairs.
At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the pres-
ence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is
quite one of ourselves, I could not refrain from making
you acquainted with the course i" advise Mr. Micawber to
take. I feel that the time is arrived when Mr. Micawber
should exert himself and — I will add — assert himself, and
it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware
that I am merely a female, and that a masculine judgment
is usually considered more competent to the discussion of
such questions ; still I must not forget that, when I lived
at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the
habit of saying, • Emma's form is fragile, but her grasp of
a subject is inferior to none.' That my papa was too par-
tial, I well know ; but that he was an observer of character
in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid me
to doubt."

With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she
would grace the remaining circulation of the punch with
her presence, Mrs. Micawber retired to my bedroom. And
really I felt that she was a noble woman — the sort of
woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done
all manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble.

In the fervour of this impression, I congratulated Mr.
Micawber on the treasure he possessed. So did Traddles.
Mr. Micawber extended his hand to each of us in succes-
sion, and then covered his face with his pocket-handker-
chief, which I think had more snuff upon it than he was
aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the highest
state of exhilaration.

He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand
that in our children we lived again, and that, under the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 421

pressure of pecuniary difficulties, any accession to their
number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs. Micawher
had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had
dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they
were totally unworthy of her, and their sentiments were
utterly indifferent to him, and they might — I quote his
own expression — go to the Devil.

Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles.
He said Traddles' s was a character, to the steady virtues
of which he (Mr. Micawber) could lay no claim, but which,
he thanked Heaven, he could admire. He feelingly alluded
to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles had honoured
with his/ affection, and who had reciprocated that affection
by honouring and blessing Traddles with her affection.
Mr. Micawber pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked
us both, by saying, with a simplicity and honesty I had
sense enough to be quite charmed with, " I am very much
obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she's the
dearest girl! "

Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of
hinting, with the utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the
state of my affections. Nothing but the serious assurance
of his friend Copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could
deprive him of the impression that his friend Copperfield
loved and was beloved. After feeling very hot and un-
comfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blush-
ing, stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in
my hand, "Well! I would give them D. ! " which so
excited and gratified Mr. Micawber, that he ran with a
glass of punch into my bedroom, in order that Mrs, Micaw-
ber might drink D. , who drank it with enthusiasm, crying
from within, in a shrill voice, " Hear, hear ! My dear Mr.
Copperfield, I am delighted. Hear ! " and tapping at the
wall, by way of applause.

Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn ;
Mr. Micawber telling us that he found Camden Town incon-
venient, and that the first thing he contemplated doing,
when .the advertisement should have been the cause of
something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He men-
tioned a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, front-
ing Hyde Park, on which he had always had his eye, but
which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would
require a large establishment. There would probably be

422 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

an interval, he explained, in which he should content him
self with the upper part of a house, over some respectable
place of business — say in Piccadilly, — which would be a
cheerful situation for Mrs. Micawber ; and where, by throw-
ing out a bow window, or carrying up the roof another
story, or making some little alteration of that sort, they
might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years.
Whatever was reserved for him, he expressly said, or
wherever his abode might be, we might rely on this— there
would always be a room for Traddles, and a knife and fork
forme. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged
us to forgive his having launched into these practical and
business-like details, and to excuse it as natural in one
who was making entirely new arrangements in life.

Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again, to know if tea
were ready, broke up this particular phase of our friendly
conversation. She made tea for us in a most agreeable
manner ; and, whenever I went near her, in handing about
the teacups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper,
whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or
tall: or something of that kind; which I think I liked.
After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire ;
and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small,
thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have considered,
when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics ) the
favourite ballads of "The Dashing White Serjeant," and
"Little Tafiiin." For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber
had been famous when she lived at home with her papa
and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard
her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her be-
neath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an
extraordinary degree ; but that when it came to Little Tafflin,
he had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt.

It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micaw-
ber rose to replace her cap' in the whity-brown paper par-
cel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the
opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to slip
a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I
would read it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity
of my holding a candle over the banisters to light them
down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs.
Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, to
detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 423

"Traddles," said I, "Mr. Micawber don't mean any
harm, pooi fellow; but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend
him anything."

"My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, smiling, "I
haven't got anything to lend."

" You have got a name, you know," said I.

"Oh! You call that something to lend?" returned
Traddles, with a thoughtful look.

"Certainly."

" Oh ! " said Traddles. " Yes, to be sure ! T am very
much obliged to you, Copperfield ; but — I am afraid I have
lent him that already."

"For the bill that is to be a certain investment?" I
inquired.

"Xo," said Traddles. "Not for that one. This is the
first I have heard of that one. I have been thinking that
he will most likely propose that one, on the way home.
Mine's another."

"I hope there will be nothing wrong about it," said I.

"I hope not," said Traddles. "I should think not,
though, because he told me, only the other day, that it
was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber' s expression.
' Provided for.' "

Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we
were standing, I had only time to repeat my caution.
Traddles thanked me, and descended. But I was much
afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which
he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs.
Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money
Market neck and heels.

I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely
and half laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and
the old relations between us, when I heard a quick step
ascending the stairs. At first, I thought it was Traddles
coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind;
but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart
beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it was Steer-
forth' s.

I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that
sanctuary in my thoughts — if I may call it so — where I had
placed her from the first. But when he entered, and stood
before me with his hand out, the darkness that had fallen
on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and ashamed

424 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her
none the less ; I thought of her as the same benignant,
gentle angel in my life ; I reproached myself, not her, with
having done him an injury ; and I would have made him
any atonement, if I had known what to make, and how to
make it.

" Why, Daisy, old boy, dumbfoundered! " laughed Steer-
forth, shaking my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily
away. " Have I detected you in another feast, you Syba-
rite ! These Doctors' Commons fellows are the gayest men
in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all tc
nothing ! " His bright glance went merrily round the
room, as he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which
Mrs. Micawber had recently vacated, and stirred the fire
into a blaze.

"I was so surprised at first," said I, giving him welcome
with all the cordiality I felt, "that I had hardly breath to
greet you with, Steerforth."

"Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the
Scotch say, " replied Steerforth, " and so is the sight of
you, Daisy, in full bloom. How are you, my Bacchanal? "

"I am very well," said I; "and not at all Bacchanalian
to-night, though I confess to another party of three."

" All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your
praise," returned Steerforth. "WTio's our friend in the
tights? "

I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr.
Micawber. He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of
that gentleman, and said he was a man to know, and he
must know him.

"But who do you suppose our other friend is? " said L
in my turn.

"Heaven knows," said Steerforth. "Not a bore? 1
hope? I thought he looked a little like one."

" Traddles ! " I replied, triumphantly.

" Who's he? " asked Steerforth,* in his careless way.

"Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room
at Salem House? "

" Oh ! That fellow ! " said Steerforth, beating a lump
of coal on the top of the fire, with the poker. " Is he as
soft as ever? And where the deuce did you pick him up? "

I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I
felt that Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dis*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 425

missing the subject with a light nod, and a smile, and the
remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for
he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give
him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue,
when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner,
he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker.
I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting
out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth.

" Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king ! " he exclaimed;
starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat
at the table. " I shall do it justice, for I have come from
Yarmouth."

" I thought you came from Oxford? " I returned.

"Xot I," said Steerforth. "I have been seafaring —
better employed."

" Littimer was here to-day, to inquire for you," I re-
marked, "and I understood him that you were at Oxford;
though, now I think of it, he certainly did not say so."

" Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have
been inquiring for me at all," said Steerforth, jovially
pouring out a glass of wine, and drinking to me. "As to
understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow than most of
us, Daisy, if you can do that."

"That's true, indeed," said I, moving my chair to the
table. "So you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth! " in-
terested to know all about it. " Have you been there long? "

"No," he returned. "An escapade of a week or so."

" And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not
married yet? "

" Xot yet. Going to be, I believe — in so many weeks,
or months, or something or other. I have not seen much
of 'em. By~the-by;" he laid down his knife and fork,
which he had been using with great diligence, and began
feeling in his pockets ; " I have a letter for you."

"From whom?"

"Why, from your old nurse," he returned, taking some
papers out of his breast-pocket. "'J. Steerforth, Esquire,
debtor, to the Willing Mind;' that's not it. Patience,
and we'll find it presently. Old what's-his-name's in a
bad way, and it's about that, I believe."

" Barkis, do you mean? "

" Yes ! " still feeling in his pockets, and looking over
their contents : "it's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid.

42o PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I saw a little apothecary there — surgeon, or whatever he is
— who brought your worship into the world. He was
mighty learned about the case, to me ; but the upshot of
his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last jour-
ney rather fast. — Put your hand into the breast-pocket of
my great-coat on the chair yonder, and I think you'll find
the letter. Is it there? "

" Here it is ! " said I.

"That's right!"

It was from Peggotty ; something less legible than usual
and brief. It informed me of her husband's hopeless state,
and hinted at his being " a little nearer " than heretofore,
and consequently more difficult to manage for his own com-
fort. It said nothing of her weariness and watching, and
praised him highly. It was written with a plain, unaf-
fected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended
with "my duty to my ever darling" — meaning myself.

While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and
drink.

"It's a bad job," he said, when I had done; "but the
sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we
mustn't be scared by the common lot. If we failed to hold
our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was
heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world
would slip from us. No ! Ride on ! Rough-shod if need
be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on ! Ride on over
all obstacles, and win the race ! "

"And win what race? " said I.

" The race that one has started in," said he. " Ride on ! "

I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with
his handsome head a little thrown back, and his glass
raised in his hand, that, though the freshness of the sea-
wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, there were traces
in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied himself
to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when
roused, was so passionately roused within him. I had it
in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon his desperate
way of pursuing any fancy that he took — such as this buf-
feting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for
example — when my mind glanced off to the immediate sub-
ject of our conversation again, and pursued that instead.

"I tell you what, Steerforth," said I, "if your high
spirits will listen to me *'

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 427

"They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you
like," he answered, moving from the table to the fireside
again.

" Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go
down and see my old nurse. It is not that I can do her
any good, or render her any real service; but she is so
attached to me that my visit will have as much effect on
her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly, that
it will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great
effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as she has been
to nip. Wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in
my place? "

His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little
before he answered, in a low voice, " Well! Go. You can
do no harm."

" You have just come back," said I, "and it would be in
vain to ask you to go with me? "

"Quite," he returned. " I am for Highgate to-night. I
have not seen my mother this long time, and it lies upon
my conscience, for it's something to be loved as she loves
her prodigal sod. — Bah! Nonsense! — You mean to go to-
morrow, I suppose?" he said, holding me out at arm's
length, with a hand on each of my shoulders.

"Yes, I think so."

" Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to
come and stay a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose
to bid you, and you fly off to Yarmouth ! "

" You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth,
who are always running wild on some unknown expedition
or other ! "

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and
then rejoined, still holding me as before, and giving me a
shake :

" Come ! Say the next day, and pass as much of to-mor-
row as you can with us ! Who knows when we may meet
again, else? Come! Say the next day! I want you to
stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder."

" Would you love each other too much, without me? "

"Yes; or hate," laughed Steerforth; "no matter which.
Jome ! Say the next day ! "

I said the next day ; and he put on his great-coat, and
lighted his cigar, and set off to walk home. Finding him in
this intention, I put on my own great-coat (but did not light

428 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

niy own cigar, having had enough of that for one while"!
and walked with him as far as the open road ; a dull road,
then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way ; ana
when we parted, and I looked after him going so gallantly
and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, " Ride on
over all obstacles, and win the race ! " and wished, for the
first time, that he had some worthy race to run.

I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's
letter tumbled on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke
the seal and read as follows. It was dated an hour and a
half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have men-
tioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly
desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology: which
he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs.

" Sir — for I dare not say, my dear Copperfield,

" It is expedient that I should inform you that the under-
signed is Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the
premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may
observe in him this day ; but hope has sunk beneath the
horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.

" The present communication is penned within the per-
sonal range (I cannot call it the society) of an individual,
in a state closely bordering on intoxication, employed by a
broker. That individual is in legal possession of the prem-
ises, under a distress for rent. His inventory includes, not
only the chattels and effects of every description belonging
to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but
also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a
member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

" If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing
cup, which is now ' commended ' (in the language of an
immortal Writer) to the lips of the undersigned, it would
be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted to
the undersigned, by the be fore -mentioned Mr. Thomas
Traddles, for the sum of £23 4s. 9$d. is overdue, and is
not provided for. Also, in the fact, that the living respon-
sibilities clinging to the undersigned, will, in the course of
nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless vic-
tim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for — in
round numbers — at the expiration of a period not exceed-
ing six lunar months from the present date.

" After premising thus much, it would be a work o*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. -429

supererogation to add, that dust and ashes are for ever
scattered

"On
"The
"Head
"Of

" VTlLKINS MlCAWBER."

Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by
this time, to foresee that he might be expected to recover
the blow; but my night's rest was sorely distressed by
thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate's daughter, who
was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a
dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous
praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be men-
tioned.

CHAPTER XXIX.

I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN.

I mextioxed to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I
wanted leave of absence for a short time ; and as I was not
in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not
obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was no diffi-
culty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice
sticking in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the
words, to express my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite
well ; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more emo-
tion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human
being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very
well.

We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of
proctors, were treated with so much consideration, that I
was almost my own master at all times. As I did not
care, however, to get to Highgate before one or two o'clock
in the day, and as we had another little excommunication
case in court that morning, which was called The office of
the Judge promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his
soul's correction, I passed an hour or two in attendance
on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably It arose out of a
scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged

430 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

to have pushed the other against a punip ; the h indie of
i^hich puiap projecting into a school-house, which school-
house was under a gable of the church-roof, made the push
an ecclesiastical offence. It was an amusing case; and
sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the stage-coach,
thinking^ about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had
said about touching the Commons and bringing down the
country.

Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa
Dartle. I was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer
was not there, and that we were attended by a modest little
parlour-maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, whose eye it
was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, to
catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man,
But what I particularly observed, before I had been half-
an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch
Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in
which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth' s,
and Steerforth' s with mine, and to lie in wait for something
to come out between the two. So surely as I looked towards
her, did I see that eager visage, with its gaunt black eyes
and searching brow, intent on mine ; or passing suddenly
from mine to Steerforth' s; or comprehending both of us at
once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from fal-
tering when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she
only fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intent
expression still. Blameless as I was, and knew that I
was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect
me of, I shrank before her strange eyes, quite unable to
endure their hungry lustre.

All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If 1
talked to Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle
in the little gallery outside. When he and I engaged in
some of our old exercises on the lawn behind the house, I
saw her face pass from window to window, like a wander-
ing light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When
we all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed
her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to keep me back,
while Steerforth and his mother went on out of hearing *.
and then spoke to me.

"You nave been a long time," she said, "without com-
ing here. Is your profession really so engaging and inter-
esting as to absorb your whole attention? I ask because I

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 431

always want to be informed, when I am ignorant. Is it
really, though? "

I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly
could not claim so much for it.

" Oh ! I am glad to know that, because I always like to
be put right when I am wrong," said Eosa Dartle. "You
mean it is a little dry, perhaps? "

Well, I replied; perhaps it was a little dry.

"Oh! and that's a reason why you want relief and
change — excitement, and all that?" said she. "Ah! very
true ! "But isn't it a little Eh? — for him ; I don't mean

you?"

A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steer-
forth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm,
showed me whom she meant ; but beyond that, I was quite
lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt.

" Don't it— I don't say that it does, mind, I want to know
— don't it rather engross him? Don't it make him, per-
haps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his
blindly-doting — eh? " With anotehr quick glance at them,
and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my inner-
most thoughts.

"Miss Dartle," I returned, "pray do not think "

"I don't! " she said. "Oh dear me, don't suppose that
I think anything! I am not suspicious. I only ask a
question. I don't state any opinion. I want to found an
opinion on what you tell me. Then, it's not so? Well!
I am very glad to know it."

"It certainly is not the fact," said I, perplexed, "that
I am accountable for Steerforth's having been away from
home longer than usual — if he has been : which I really
don't know at this moment, unless I understand it from
you. I have not seen him this long while, until last
night."

" No? "

" Indeed, Miss Dartle, no! "

As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper
and paler, and the marks of the old wound lengthen out
until it cut through the disfigured lip, and deep into the
nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was some-
thing positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness
of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me :

"What is he doing?"

432 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so
amazed.

" What is he doing? " she said, with an eagerness that
seemed enough to consume her like a fire. "In what is
that man assisting him, who never looks at me without an
inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are honourable
and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your friend. I ask
you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is
it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it9
that is leading him? "

"Miss Dartle," I returned, "how shall I tell you, so
that you will believe me, that I know of nothing in Steer-
forth different from what there was when I first came here?
I can think of nothing. I hardly understand, even, what
vqu mean."

As she still looked fixedly at me, a twitching or throb-
bing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain,
came into that cruel mark ; and lifted up the corner of her
lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object.
She put her hand upon it hurriedly — a hand so thin and
delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the
fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to
fine porcelain — and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate
way, " I swear you to secrecy about this ! " said not a word
more.

Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's soci-
ety, and Steerforth was. ou this occasion, particularly atten-
tive and respectful to her. It was very interesting to me
to see them together, not only on account of their mutual
affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance
between them, and the manner in which what was haughty
jr impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her,
to a gracious dignity. I thought, more than once, that it
was well no serious cause of division had ever come between
them ; or two such natures — I ought rather to express it,
two such shades of the same nature — might have been
harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in
creation. The idea did not originate in my own discern-
ment, T am bound to confess, but in a sptech of Rosa
DartleV

She said at dinner:

" Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have
been thinking about it all day, and I want to know. "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 433

"You want to know what, Rosa? " returned Mrs. Steer-
forth. "Fray, pray, "Rosa, do not be mysterious."

"Mysterious!" she cried. "Oh! really? Do you con-
sider me so? "

"Do I constantly entreat you," said Mrs. Steerforth, "to
speak plainly, in your own natural manner? "

"Oh! then, this is not my natural manner?" she re
joined. " Now you must really bear with me, because I
ask for information. We never know ourselves."

"It has become a second nature," said Mrs. Steerforth,
without any displeasure ; " but I remember, — and so must
you, I think, — when your manner was different, Rosa*
when it was not so guarded, and waf more trustful."

"I am sure you are right," she returned; "and so it is
that bad habits grow upon one ! Really? Less guarded and
more trustful? How can I, imperceptibly, have changed,
I wonder! Well, that's very odd! I must study to regain
my former self."

"I wish you would," said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile.

" Oh ! I really will, you know ! " she answered. " I will
learn frankness from — let me see — from James."

" You cannot learn frankness, Rosa," said Mrs. Steer-
forth, quickly — for there was always some effect of sarcasm
in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, as this was,
in the most unconscious manner in the world — "in a better
school."

" That I am sure of, " she answered, with uncommon fer-
vour. " If I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I
am sure of that."

Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a
little nettled ; for she presently said, in a kind tone :

" Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that
you want to be satisfied about? "

" That I want to be satisfied about? " she replied, with
provoking coldness. "Oh! it was only whether people,
who are like each other in their moral constitution — is that
the phrase?"

"It's as good a phrase as another," said Steerforth.

" Thank you :— whether people, who are like each other
in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than peo-
ple not so circumstanced, supposing aDy serious cause of
variance to arise between tnftm, of being divided angrily
and deeply? "
28

434 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"I should say yes," said Steerforth.

"Should you?" she retorted. "Dear me! Supposing
then, for instance — any unlikely thing will do for a suppo-
sition— that you and your mother were to have a serious
quarrel."

"My dear Eosa," interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing
good-naturedly, " suggest some other supposition ! James
and I know our duty to each other better, I pray Heaven ! "

" Oh ! " said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully.
"To be sure. That would prevent it? Why, of course it
would. Ex-actly. Now, I am glad I have been so foolish as
to put the case, for it . s so very good to know that your duty
to each other would p/event it! Thank you very much."

One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle
I must not omit ; for I had reason to remember it there-
after, when all the irremediable past was rendered plain.
During the whole of this day, but especially from this
period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his utmost
skill, and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this sin-
gular creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. That
he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to me. That
she should struggle against the fascinating influence of his
delightful art— delightful nature I thought it then — did not
surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes
jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features and her man-
ner slowly change ; I saw her look at him with growing
admiration; I saw her try, more and more faintly, but
always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in herself,
to resist the captivating power that he possessed ; and final-
ly, I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite
gentle, and I ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been
all day, and we all sat about the fire, talking and laughing
together, with as little reserve as if we had been children.

Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or
because Steerforth was resolved not to lose the advantage
he had gained, I do not know ; but we did not remain in
the dining-room more than five minutes after her depart-
ure. "She is playing her harp," said Steerforth, softly,
at the drawing-room door, "and nobody but my mother
has heard her do that, I believe, these three years." He
said it with a curious smile, which was gone directly ; and
we went into the room and found her alone.

"Don't get up! " said Steerforth (which she had already

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 435

done) ; "my dear Rosa, don't! Be kind for once, and sing
us an Irish song."

" What do you care for an Irish song? " she returned.

"Much!" said Steerforth. "Much more than for any
other. Here is Daisy, too, loves music from his soul.
Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let me sit and listen as
I used to do."

He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had
risen, but sat himself near the harp. She stood beside it
for some little while, in a curious way, going through the
motion of playing it with her right hand, but not sounding
it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one
sudden action, and played and sang.

I don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that
made that song the most unearthly I have ever heard in
my life, or can imagine. There was something fearful in
the reality of it. It was as if it had never been written,
or set to music, but sprung out of the passion within her ;
which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her
voice, and crouched again when all was still. I was dumb
when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not
sounding it, with her right hand.

A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance :
— Steerforth had left his seat, and gone to her, and had
put his arm laughingly about her, and had said, " Come,
Eosa, for the future we will love each other very much ! "
And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the
fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room.

" What is the matter with Rosa? " said Mrs. Steerforth,
coming in.

" She has been an angel, mother," returned Steerforth:
"for a little while; and has run into the opposite extreme^
since, by way of compensation."

" You should be careful not to irritate her, James. ' Her
temper has been soured, remember, and ought not to be
tried,"

Rosa lid not come back; and no other mention was made
of her, until I went with Steerforth into his room to say
Good-night. Then he laughed about her, and asked me if I
had ever seen such a fierce little piece of incomprehensibility.

I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then
capable of expression, and asked if he could guess what it
was that she had taken so much amiss, so suddenly.

t36 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Oh, Heaven knows," said Steerforth. "Anything you
like — or nothing! I told you she took everything, herself
included, to a grindstone, and sharpened it. She is an
edge-tool, and requires great care in dealing with. She is
always dangerous. Good night! "

" Good night ! " said I, " my dear Steerforth ! I shall be
gone before you wake in the morning. Good night! "

He was unwilling to let me go ; and stood, holding me
out, with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done
in my own room.

"Daisy," he said, with a smile — "for though that's not
the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it's
the name I like best to call you by — and I wish, I wish, I
wish, you could give it to me ! "

" Why, so I can, if I choose," said I.

"Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must
think of me at my best, old boy. Come ! Let us make
that bargain. Think of me at my best, if circumstances
should ever part us ! "

"You have no best to me, Steerforth," said I, "and no
worst. You are always equally loved, and cherished
in my heart."

So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even
by a shapeless thought, did I feel within me, that the con-
fession of having done so was rising to my lips. But for
the reluctance I had, to betray the confidence of Agnes,
but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no
risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said,
" God bless you, Daisy, and good night ! " In my doubt,
it did not reach them ; and we shook hands, and we parted.

I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as
quietly as I could, looked into his room. He was fast
asleep ; lying, easily, with his head upon his arm, as I had
often seen him lie at school.

The time came in its season, and that was very soon,
when I almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose,
as I looked at him.

But he slept — let me think of him so again — as I had
often seen him sleep at school; and thus, in this silent
hour, I left him.

— Never more, oh God forgive you, Steerforth ! to touch
that passive hand in love and friendship. Never, never more !

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 43?

CHAPTER XXX.

A LOSS.

I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the
inn. I knew that Peggotty's spare room — my room — was
likely to have occupation enough in a little while, if that
great Visitor, before whose presence all the living must
give place, were not already in the house; so I betook
myself to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed.

It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops
were shut, and the town was dull. "When I came to Omer
and Joram's, I found the shutters up, but the shop-door
standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view of
Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlour-door, I
entered, and asked him how he was.

" Why, bless my life and soul ! n said Mr. Omer, " how
do you find yourself? Take a seat. — Smoke not disagree-
able, I hope?"

'•'By no means," said I. "I like it — in somebody else's
pipe."

" What, not in your own, eh? " Mr. Omer returned,
laughing. " All the better, Sir. Bad habit for a young
man. Take a seat. I smoke, myself, for the asthma."

Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair.
He now sat down again, very much out of breath, gasping
at his pipe as if it contained a supply of that necessary,
without which he must perish.

" I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis," said I

Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and
shook his head.

" Do you know how he is to-night? " I asked.

"The very question I should have put to you, Sir,"
returned Mr. Omer, "but on account of delicacy. It's one
of the drawbacks of our line of business. WTien a party's
ill, we can't ask how the party is."

The difficulty had not occurred to me ; though I had had

438 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

my apprehensions too, when I went in, of hearing the old
tune. On its being mentioned, I recognised it, however,
and said as much.

"Yes, yes, you understand," said Mr. Omer, nodding
his head. "We dursn't do it. Bless you, it would be a
shock that the generality of parties mightn't recover, to
say ' Omer and Joram's compliments, and how do you find
yourself this morning? ' — or this afternoon — as it may be."

Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omei
recruited his wind by the aid of his pipe.

"It's one of the things that cut the trade off from atten
tions they could often wish to show," said Mr. Omer.
" Take myself. If I have known Barkis a year, to move
to as he went by, I have known him forty year. But 1
can't go and say, ' How is he? ' "

I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so.

"I'm not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,"
said Mr. Omer. " Look at me ! My wind may fail me at
any moment, and it ain't likely that, to my own knowledge,
I'd be self-interested under such circumstances. I say it
ain't likely, in a man who knows his wind will go, when
it does go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open ; and that
man a grandfather," said Mr. Omer.

I said, "Not at all."

"It ain't that I complain of my line of business," said
Mr. Omer. "It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes,
no doubt, to all callings. What I wish is, that parties was
brought up stronger-minded."

Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took
several puffs in silence ; and then said, resuming his first
point :

"Accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis
goes on, to limit ourselves to Em'ly. She knows what our
real objects are, and she don't have any more alarms or
suspicions about us, than if we was so many lambs. Min-
nie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact
(she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her
how he is to-night ; and if you was to please to wait till
they come back, they'd give you full particulars. Will
you take something? A glass of srub and water, now? I
smoke on srub and water, myself," said Mr. Omer, taking
ivp his glass, "because it's considered softening to the pas-
sages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. ±39

action. But, Lord bless you," said Mr. Oiner, huskily,
" it ain't the passages that's out of order ! ' Give me breath
enough,' says I to my daughter Minnie, 'and /'ll find pas-
sages, my dear.' "

He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarm-
ing to see him laugh. When he was again in a condition
to be talked to, I thanked him for the proffered refresh-
ment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner; and,
observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to
invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back,
I inquired how little Emily was?

•" Well, Sir," said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that/he
might rub his chin ; " I tell you truly, I shall be glad when
her marriage has taken place."

" Why so? " I inquired.

" Well, she's unsettled at present," said Mr. Omer. " It
aint that she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier — I
do assure you, she is prettier. It ain't that she don't work
as well as ever, for she does. She was worth any six, and
she is worth any six. But somehow she wants heart. If
you understand," said Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin
again, and smoking a little, ''what I mean in a general
way by the expression, 'A long pull, and a strong pull, and
a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah ! ' I should say to you,
that that was— in a general way — what I miss in Emily."

Mr. Omer's face and manner went for so much, that I
could conscientiously nod my head, as divining his mean-
ing. My quickness of apprehension seemed to please him,
and he went on :

" Xow, I consider this is principally on account of her
being in an unsettled state, you see. We have talked it
over a good deal, her uncle and myself, and her sweetheart
and myself, after business ; and I consider it is principally
on account of her being unsettled. You must always recol-
lect of Em'ly," said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently,
"that she's a most extraordinary affectionate little thing.
The proverb says, ' You can't make a silk purse out of a
sow's ear.' Well, I don't know about that. I rather think
you may, if you begin early in life. She has made a home
out of that old boat, Sir, that stone and marble couldn't
beat."

" I am sure she has ! " said I.

" To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her

440 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

uncle," said Mr. Omer; "to see the way she holds on to
him, tighter and tighter, and closer and closer, every day,
is to see a sight. Now, you know, there's a struggle going
on when that's the case. Why should it be made a longer
one than is needful? "

I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acqui-
esced, with all my heart, in what he said.

"Therefore, I mentioned to them," said Mr. Omer, in a
comfortable, easy-going tone, "this. I said, ' Now, don't
consider Em'ly nailed down in point of time, at all. Make
it your own time. Her services have been more valuable
than was supposed; her learning has been quicker than
was supposed; Omer and Joram can run their pen through
what remains; and she's free when you wish. If she
likes to make any little arrangement, afterwards, in the way
of doing any little thing for us at home, very well. If she
don't, very well still. We're no losers, anyhow.' For
— don't you see," said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe,
"it ain't likely that a man so short of breath as myself,
and a grandfather too, would go and strain points with a
little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like her ? "

" Not at all, I am certain," said I.

"Not at all! You're right!" said Mr. Omer. "Well,
Sir, her cousin — you know it's a cousin she's going to be
married to? "

" Oh yes," I replied. " I know him well."

"Of course you do," said Mr. Omer. "Well, Sir! Her
cousin being, as it appears., in good work, and well to do,
thanked me in a very manly sort of manner for this (con-
ducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way that gives
me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfort-
able a little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on.
That little house is now furnished, right through^ as neat
and complete as a doll's parlour; and but for Barkis' s ill-
ness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would
have been man and wife — I dare say, by this time. As it
is, there's a postponement."

" And Emily, Mr. Omer? " I inquired. " Has she be-
come more settled? "

" Why that, you know," he returned, rubbing his doubJe-
chin again, "can't naturally be expected. The prospect of
the change and separation, and all that, is, as one may say.,
close to her and far away from her, both at once. Barkis' s

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELIX 441

death needn't put it off much, but his lingering might.
Anyway, it's an uncertain state of matters, you see."

"I see," said I.

"Consequently," pursued Mr. Omer, "Ein'ly's still a
little down and a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole,
she's more so than she was. Every day she seems to get
fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth to part from
all of us. A kind word from me brings the tears into her
eyes ; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie's
little girl, you'd never forget it. Bless my heart alive! "
said Mr. Omer, pondering, " how she loves that child ! "

Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me
to ask Mr. Omer, before our conversation should be inter-
rupted .by the return of his daughter and her husband,
whether he knew anything of Martha.

"Ah! " he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very
much dejected. "No good. A sad story, Sir, however
you come to know it. I never thought there was any harm
in the girl. I wouldn't wish to mention it before my
daughter Minnie — for she'd take me up directly — but I
never did. None of us ever did. "

Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before I heard
it, touched me with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a cau-
tion. She and her husband came in immediately afterwards

Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was "as bad as bad
could be ; " that he was quite unconscious ; and that Mr.
Chillip had mournfully said in the kitchen, on going away
just now, that the College of Physicians, the College of
Surgeons, and Apothecaries' Hall, if they were all called
in together, couldn't help him. He was past both Col-
leges, Mr. Chillip said, and the Hall could only poison him.

Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there,
I determined to go to the house at once. I bade good night
to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram ; and directed my
steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkis
quite a new and different creature. ■

My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggctty.
He was not so much surprised to see me as I had expected.
I remarked this in Peggotty, too, when she came down ;
and I have seen it since ; and I think, in the expectation
of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises dwin-
dle into nothing.

I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the

442 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

kitchen, while he softly closed the door. Little Emily
was sitting by the fire, with her hands before her face
Ham was standing near her.

We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for
any sound in the room above. I had not thought of it on
the occasion of my last visit, but how strange it was to me
now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the kitchen !

"This is very kind of you, Mas'r Davy," said Mr.
Peggotty.

"It is oncommon kind," said Ram.

"Em'ly, my dear," cried Mr. Peggotty. "See here!
Here's Mas'r Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not
a wured to Mas'r Davy? "

There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now.
The coldness of her hand when I touched it, I can ¥eel yet.
Its only sign of animation was to shrink from mine ; and
then she glided from the chair, and, creeping to the other
side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling
still, upon his breast.

"It's such a loving art," said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing
her rich hair with his great hard hand, "that it can't abear
the sorrer of this. It's nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy,
when they're new to these here trials, and timid, like my
little bird, — it's nat'rai.'?

She clung closer to hini, but neither lifted up her face,
nor spoke a word.

"It's getting late, my dear," said Mr. Peggotty, "and
here's Ham come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along
with t'other loving art! What, Em' ly? Eh, my pretty? "

The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent
his head as if he listened to her, and then said:

"Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen't mean
to ask me that ! Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When
^ our husband that'll be so soon, is here fur to take you
home? Now a person wouldn't think it, fur to see this
little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me," said
Mr. Peggotty, looking round at bdth of us, with infinite
pride ; " but the sea ain't more salt in it than she has fond-
ness in her for her uncle — ? foolish little Em'ly ! "

"Em'ly's in the right in that, Mas'r Davy! " said Ham.
"Look'ee here! As Em'ly wishes of rt, and as she's hur-
ried and frightened, like, besides, I'll leave her till morn-
ing. Let me stay too I "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 443

"No, no," said Mr. Peggotty. "You doen't ought — a
married man like you — or what's as good — to take and hull
away a day's work And you doen't ought to watch and
work both. That won't do. You go home and turn in.
You ain't afeerd of Em'ly not being took good care on, 1
know."

Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go.
Even when he kissed her, — and I never saw him approach
her, but I felt that nature had given him the soul of a
gentleman, — she seemed to cling closer to her uncle, ever,
to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the dooi
after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet
that prevailed ; and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peg-
gotty still talking to her.

"Now, I'm a going up-stairs to tell your aunt as Mas'r
Davy's here, and that'll cheer her up a bit," he said. " Sit
ye down by the fire, the while, my dear, and warm these
mortal cold hands. You doen't need to be so fearsome,
and take on so much. What? You'll go along with me?
— Well! come along with me — come! If her uncle was
turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in
a dyke, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride
than before, "it's my belief she'd go along with him, now!
But there'll be some one else, soon. — some one else, soon,
Em'ly!"

Afterwards, when I went up-stairs, as I passed the door
of my little chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct
impression of her being within it, cast down upon the floor.
But, whether it was really she, or whether it was a confu-
sion of the shadows in the room, I don't know now.

I had leisure to think, before the kitchen-fire, of pretty
little Em'ly' s dread of death— which, added to what Mr.
Omer had told me, I took to be the cause of her being so
unlike herself — and I had leisure, before Peggotty came
down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it :
as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening
my sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took
me in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over
again for being such a comfort to her (that was what she
said) in her distress. She then entreated me to come up-
stairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and
admired me ; that he had often talked of me, before he
fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case of his

444 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

coming to himself again, lie would brighten up at sight of
me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing.

The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me,
when I saw him, to be very small. He was lying with his
head and shoulders out of bed, in an uncomfortable atti-
tude, half resting on the box which had cost him so much
pain and trouble. I learned that, when he was past creeping
out of bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety
by means of the divining-rod I had seen him use, he had re-
quired to have it placed on the chair at the bedside, where
he had ever since embraced it, night and day. His arm lay
on it now. Time and the world were slipping from be-
neath him, but the box was there ; and the last words he
had uttered were (in an explanatory tone) " Old Clothes ! "

" Barkis, my dear ! " said Peggotty, almost cheerfully :
bending over him, while her brother and I stood at the
bed's foot. "Here's my dear boy — my dear boy, Master
Davy, who brought us together, Barkis ! That you sent mes-
sages by, you know! Won't you speak to Master Davy? "

He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which
his form derived the only expression it had.

"He's a going out with the tide," said Mr. Peggotty to
me, behind his hand.

My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggotty' s; but I
repeated in a whisper, " With the tide? "

"People can't die, along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty,
"except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be
born, unless it's pretty nigh in — not properly born, till
flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-
arter three, slack water half-an-hour. If he lives till it
turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out
with the next tide."

We remained there, watching him, a long time — hours
What mysterious influence my presence had upon him in
that state of his senses, I shall not pretend to say; but
when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he was
muttering about driving me to school.

"He's coming to himself," said Peggotty.

Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe
and reverence, " They are both a going out fast. "

" Barkis, my dear ! " said Peggotty.

"0. P. Barkis," he cried faintly. "No better womaci
anywhere ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 445

;:Look! Here's Master Davy! " said Peggotty. For he
now opened his eyes.

I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when
he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly,
with a pleasant smile :

" Barkis is willin' ! "

And, it being low water, he went out with the tide

CHAPTER XXXI.

A GREATER LOSS.

It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty' s solicitation, to
resolve to stay where I was, until after the remains of the
poor carrier should have made their last journey to Blun-
derstone. She had long ago bought, out of her own sav-
ings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near
the grave "of her sweet girl," as she always called my
mother; and there they were to rest.

In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for
her (little enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I re-
joice to think, as even now I could wish myself to have
been. But I am afraid I had a supreme satisfaction, of a
personal and professional nature, in taking charge of Mr.
Barkis' s will, and expounding its contents.

I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion
that the will should be looked for in the box. After some
search, it was found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's
nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there was discovered an
old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis
had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been
seen before or since ; a silver tobacco-stopper in the form
of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and
saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have pur-
chased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards
found himself unable to part with ; eighty-seven guineas
and a half, in guineas and half-guineas ; two hundred and
ten pounds, in perfectly clean bank-notes ; certain receipts
for Bank of England stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shil-
ling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. From the
circumstance of the latter article having been much pol

446 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I con-
clude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls,
which never resolved themselves into anything definite.

For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on
all his journeys, every day. That it might the better es-
cape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to
"Mr. Blackboy," and was "to be left with Barkis till called
for : " a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in char-
acters now scarcely legible.

He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good pur-
pose. His property in money amounted to nearly three
thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed the interest of
one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life ; on his decease,
the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, lit-
tle Emily, and me or the survivor or survivors of us, share
and share alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he be-
queathed to Peggotty ; whom he left residuary legatee, and
sole executrix of that his last will and testament.

I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document
aloud with all possible ceremony, and set forth its provi-
sions, any number of times, to those whom they concerned.
I began to think there was more in the Commons than I
had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest at-
tention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects,
made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it
rather extraordinary that I knew so much.

In this abstruse pursuit ; in making an account for Peg-
gotty, of all the property into which she had come ; in ar-
ranging all the affairs in an orderly manner ; and in being
her referee and adviser on every point, to our joint delight ;
I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see little
Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be
quietly married in a fortnight.

I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may ven-
ture to say so. I mean I was not dressed up in a black
cloak and a streamer, to frighten the birds ; but I walked
over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the
churclryard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and
her brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my
little window; Mr. Chillip's bab}*- wagged its heavy head,
and rolled its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse's
shoulder ; Mr. Omer breathed short in the background ; no
one else was there ; and it was very quiet. We walked

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 447

about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over ; and
pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's
grave.

A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the
distant town, towards which I retraced my solitary steps.
I fear to approach it. I cannot bear to think of what did
come, upon that memorable night; of what must come
again, if I go on.

It is no worse, because I write it, It would be no bet-
ter, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done.
Nothing can undo it ; nothing can make it otherwise than
as it was.

My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on
the business of the will. Little Emily was passing that
day at Mr. Onier s. We were all to meet in the old boat-
house that night. Ham would bring Emily at the usual
hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and
sister would return as they had come, and be expecting us,
when the day closed in, at the fireside.

I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary
Straps had rested with Eoderick Random's knapsack in the
days of yore ; and, instead of going straight back, walked
a little distance on the road to Lowestoft. Then I turned,
and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at
a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the ferry I have
mentioned before ; and thus the day wore away, and it was
evening when I reached it. Rain was falling heavily by
that time, and it was a wild night ; but there was a moon
behind the clouds, and it was not dark.

I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty' s house, and of
the light within it shining through the window. A little
floundering across the sand, which was heavy, brought me
to the door, and I went in.

It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had
smoked his evening pipe, and there were preparations for
some supper by-and-by. The fire was bright, the ashes
were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily in
her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once
more, iooking (but for her dress) as if she had never left
it. She had fallen back, already, on the society of the
work-box with Saint Paul's upon the lid, the yard-measure
in the cottage, and the bit of wax candle : and there they
all were, just as if thev had never been disturbed. Mrs.

*48 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Gumxaidge appeared to be fretting a little, in her old cop
ner ; and consequently looked quite natural, too.

"You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy!" said Mr. Peg-
gotty, with a happy face. "Doen't keep in that coat, Sir,
if it's wet,"

" Thank you, Mr. Peggotty " said I, giving him my outer
coat to hang up. "It's quite dry."

uSo 'tis!" said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders.
"As a chip! Sit ye down, Sir. It ain't o' no use saying
welcome to you, but you're welcome, kind and hearty."

" Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well,
Peggotty ! " said I, giving her a kiss. " And how are you,
old woman? "

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside
us, and rubbing his hands in his sense of relief from recent
trouble, and in the genuine heartiness of his nature;
"there's not a woman in the wureld, Sir — as I tell her —
that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She
done her dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd
it; and the departed done what was right by her, as she
done what was right by the departed; — and — and — and
it's bright!"

Mrs. Guromidge groaned.

" Cheer up, my pretty mawther ! " said Mr. Peggotty.
(But he shook his head aside at us, evidently sensible of
the tendency of the late occurrences to recall the memory
of the old one.) "Doen't be down! Cheer up, for your
own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more
doen't come nat'ral! "

"Not to me, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge. "Noth-
ink's nat'ral to me but to be lone and lorn."

"No, no," said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows.

"Yes, yes, Dan'l!" said Mrs. Gummidge. "I ain;t a
person to live with them as has had money left, Thinks
go too contrairy with me. I had better be a riddance."

" Why, how should I ever spend it without you? " said
Mr. Peggotty, with an air of serious remonstrance. "What
are you a talking on? Doen't I want you more now, than
ever I did? "

"I know'd I was never wanted before!" cried Mrs.
Gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, " and now I'm told
so ! How could I expect to be wanted, being so lone ana
lorn, and so contrairy! "

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD 449

Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for
having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construc-
tion, but was prevented from replying, by Peggotty 's pull-
ing his sleeve, and shaking her head. After looking at
Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of
mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the
candle, and put it in the window.

"Theer! " said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. "Theer we are,
Missis Gummidge ! " Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned.
" Lighted up, accordin' to custom! You're a wonderin'
what that's fur, Sir! Well, it's fur our little Em'ly.
You see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark ;
and when I'm here at the hour as she's a comin' home, S
puts the light in the winder. That, you see," said Mr;
Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, "meets two
objects. She says, says Em'ly, ' Theer' s home! ? she says.
And likewise, says Em'ly, * My uncle's theer! ' Fur if I
ain't theer, I never have no light showed."

" You're a baby! " said Peggotty; very fond of him for
it, if she thought so.

"Well," returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs
pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them
in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked alternately at
us and at the fire, " I doen't know but I am. Not, yois
see, to look at."

"Not azacktly," observed Peggotty.

"No," laughed Mr. Peggotty, "not to look at, but to —
to consider on, you know, /doen't care, bless you! Now
I tell you. When I go a looking and looking about that
theer pritty house of our Em'ly' s, I'm— I'm Gormed," said
Mr Peggotty, with sudden emphasis — "theer! I can't say
more — if I doen't feel as if the littlest things was her,
a* most. I takes 'em up and I puts 'em down, and I
touches of em as delicate as if they was our Em'ly. So 'tis
with her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on em
rough used a purpose— not fur the whole wureld. There's
a babby for you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine ! "
said Mr. Peggotty, relieving his earnestness with a roar of
laughter.

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.

"It's my opinion, you see," said Mr. Peggotty, with a
delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, " as
this is along of my havin' played with her so much, and
29

450 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

made believe as we was Turks, and French, and sharks,
and every wariety of forinners — bless you, yes; and lions
and whales, and I doen't know what all! — when she wain't
no higher than my knee. I've got into the way on it, you
know. Why, this here jandle now ! " said Mr. Peggotty,
gleefully holding out his hand towards it, " 1 know wery
well that arter she's married and gone, I shall put that
candle theer, just that same as now. I know wery well
that when I'm here o' nights (and where else should i" live,
bless your arts, whatever fortun I come into?) and she ain't
here, or I ain't theer, I shall put the candle in the winder,
and sit afore the fire, pretending I'm expecting of her, like
I'm a doing now. There's a babby for you," said Mr.
Peggotty, with another roar, " in the form of a Sea Porky-
pine ! Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle
sparkle up, I says to myself, ' She's a looking at it!
Em'ly's a coming! ' There's a babby for you, in the form
of a Sea Porkypine ! Right for all that," said Mr. Peg-
gotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together ;
u fur here she is ! "

It was only Ham. The night should have turned more
wet since I came in, for he had a large sou' -wester hat on,
slouched over his face.

"Wheer'sErn'ly?" said Mr. Peggotty.

Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were out-
side. Mr. Peggotty took the light from the window,
trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the
fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said :

" Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what
Em'ly and me has got to show you? "

We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to
my astonishment and fright, that he was deadly pale. He
pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the door
upon us. Only upon us two.

" Ham ! what's the matter? "

< Mas'r Davy! " Oh, for his broken heart, how

dreadfully he wept !

I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don't
know what I thought, or what I dreaded. I could only
look at him.

" Ham ! Poor good fellow ! For Heaven's sake, tell me
what's the matter! "

"My love, Mas'r Davy — the pride and hope of my art—

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 451

h?r that T,d have died for, and would die for now — she's
gone ! "

"Gone?"

"Eni'ly's run away! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think how she's
run away, when I pray my good and gracious God to kill
her (her that is so dear above all things) sooner than let
her come to ruin and disgrace ! "

The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering
of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain asso-
ciated with that lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this
hour. It is always night there, and he is the only object
in the scene.

" You're a scholar," he said, hurriedly, " and know what's
right and best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I
ever to break it to him, Mas'r Davy? "

I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the
latch on the outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too
late. Mr. Peggotty thrust forth his face; and never could
I forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if
I were to live five hundred years.

I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hang-
ing about him, and we all standing in the room ; I with a
paper in my hand, which Ham had given me ; Mr. Peg-
gotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and
lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it
had sprung from his mouth, I think), looking fixedly
at me.

" Read it, Sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. " Slow,
please. I doen't know as I can understand."

In the midst of this silence of death, I read thus, from a
blotted letter : —

" 'When you, who love me so much better than I ever Lave de-
served, even when my mind was innocent, see thiss I shall be far
away. ' "

"I shall be fur away," he repeated slowly. "Stop!
Em 'ly fur away. Well!5'*

"'When 1 leave my dear tome — my dear home— oL my dear
home ! — in the morning, '

the letter bore date on the previous night:

' — it will be neve^ to come back, unless he brings me back a lady.
This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh,
if you knew how my heart is torn If even you, that I have

452 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wronged so much, that never can forgive me, could only know
what I suffer! I am too wicked to write about myself. Oh, take
comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh, for mercy's sake, teK
uncle that I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don't re-
jnember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me— don't
remember we were ever to be married — but try to think as if I died
when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that 1
am going away from, have compassion on my uncle ! Tell him that
I never loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good
girl, that will be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and
worth}- of you, and know no shame but me. God bless all! I'll
pray for all, often, on my knees. If he don't bring me back a lady
,and I don't pray for my own self, I'll pray for all. My parting love
to uncle. My last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle! ' "

That was all.

He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking
at me. At length I ventured to take his hand, and to en-
treat him, as well as I could, to endeavour to get some
iCommand of himself. He replied, "I thank'ee, Sir, I
thank 'ee ! " without moving.

Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible
of his affliction, that he wrung his hand ; but, otherwise,
lie remained in the same state, and no one dared to disturb
him.

Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if
he were waking from a vision, and cast them round the
room. Then he said, in a low voice :

" Who's the man? I want to know his name."

Ham glanced at me, and suddenly l felt a shock that
struck me back.

"There's a man suspected," said Mr. Peggotty. "Who
is it ? "

" Mas'r Davy! " implored Ham. " Go out a bit, and let
me tell him what I must. You doen't ought to hear it,
Sir."

I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and
tried to utter some reply ; but my tongue was fettered, and
my sight was weak.

" I want to know his name! " I heard said, once more.

"For some time past," Ham faltered, "there's been a
servant about here, at odd times. There's been a gen'lm'n
too. Both of 'em belonged to one another."

Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at
Jiim.

"The servant," pursued Ham, "was seen along with-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 453

our poor girl— last night. He's been in hiding about here,
this week or over. He was thought to have gone, but he
was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r Davy, doen't! "

I felt Peggotty' s arm round my neck, but I could not
have moved if the house had been about to fall upon,
me.

" A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morn-
ing, on the Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke,"
Ham went on. " The servant went to it, and come from
it, and went to it again. When he went to it again, Eni'ly
was nigh him. The t'other was inside. He's the man.'*

"For the Lord's love," said Mr. Peggotty, falling back^
and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded.
"Doen't tell me his name's Steerforth."

'•Mas'r Davy," exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, "it
ain't no fault of yourn — and I am far from laying of it to
you — but his name is Steerforth, and he's a damned vil-
lain!"

Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and
moved no more, until he seemed to wake again, all at once,
and pulled down his rough coat from its peg in a corner.

"Bear a hand with this! I'm struck of a heap, and
can't do it," he said, impatiently. "Bear a hand, and
help me. Well!" when somebody had done so. "Now
give me that theer hat ! "

Ham asked him whither he was going.

" I'm a going to seek my niece. I'm a going to seek my
Em'ly. I'm a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and
sink it where I would have drown ded him, as I'm a livin?
soul, if I had had one thought of what was in him ! As
he sat afore me," he said, wildly, holding out his clenched
right hand, "as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me
down dead, but I'd have drown ded him, and thought it
right! — I'm a going to seek my niece."

"Where?" cried Ham, interposing himself before the
door.

" Anywhere ! I'm a going to seek my niece through the
wurekl. I'm a going to find my poor niece in her shame,
and bring her back. No one stop me! I tell you I'm a
going to seek my niece ! "

" No, no! " cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them,
in a fit of crying. " No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now.
Seek her in a little while, my lone lorn Dan'l, and that'll

454 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

be but right; but not as you are now. Sit ye down, and
give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to
you, Dan'l— what have my contrairies ever been to this! —
and let us speak a word about them times when she was
first an orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a
poor widder woman, and you took me in. It'll soften your
poor heart, Dan'l," laying her head upon his shoulder,
"and you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the
promise, Dan'l, 'As you have done it unto one of the least
of these, you have done it unto Me ' ; and that can never
fail under this roof, that's been our shelter for so many,
many year ! "

He was quite passive now ; and when I heard him cry-
ing, the impulse that had been upon me to go down upon
my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation I had
caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better feeling.
My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried
too

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY.

What is natural in me, is natural in many other men,
1 infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had
loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me
to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery
of his unworthiness, I thought more of aU that was bril-
liant in him, I softened more towards all that was good
in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might
have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name,
than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him.
Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution
of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face
to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I
should have loved him so well still — though he fascinated
me no longer — I should have held in so much tenderness
the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should
have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but
the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-
united. That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt
that all was at an end between us. What his remembrances

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 455

of rae were, I have never known — they were light enough,
perhaps, and easily dismissed — but mine of him were as
the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.

Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this
poor history! ]\Iy sorrow may bear involuntary witness
against you at the Judgment Throne; but my angry
thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know !

The news of what had happened soon spread through the
town ; insomuch that as I passed along the streets next
morning, I overheard the people speaking of it at their
doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were hard
upon him, but towards her second father and her lover
there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people
a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was
full of gentleness and delicacy. The seafaring men kept
apart, when those two were seen early, walking with slow
steps on the beach ; and stood in knots, talking compas-
sionately among themselves.

It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found
them. It would have been easy to perceive that they had
not slept all last night, even if Peggotty had failed to tell
me of their still sitting just as I left them, when it was
broad day. They looked worn ; and I thought Mr Peg-
gotty's head was bowed in one night more than in all the
years I had known him. But they were both as grave and
steady as the sea itself: then lying beneath a dark sky,
waveless — yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed
in its rest — and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of
silvery light from the unseen sun.

" We have had a mort of talk, Sir," said Mr. Peggotty
to me, when we had all three walked a little while in si-
lence, " of what we ought and doen't ought to do. But
we see our course now."

I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea
upon the distant light, and a frightful thought came into
my mind — not that his face was angry, for it was not ; I
recall nothing but an expression of stern determination in it
— that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would kill him.

" My dooty here, Sir," said Mr. Peggotty, " is done.

I'm a going to seek my " he stopped, and went on in

a tinner voice : u I'm a going to seek her. That's my dooty
evermore."

He shook his head when I asked him where he would

45G PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

seek her, and inquired if I were going to London to-mor-
row? I told him I had not gone to-day, fearing to lose
the chance of being of any service to him ; but that I was
ready to go when he would.

"I'll go along with you, Sir," he rejoined, "if you're
agreeable, to-morrow."

We walked again, for a while, in silence.

"Ham," he presently resumed, "he'll hold to his pres-
ent work, and go and live along with my sister. The old
boat yonder -"

" Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?" I gently
interposed.

"My station, Mas'r Davy," he returned, "ain't there no
longer ; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was dark-
ness on the face of the deep, that one's gone down. But
no, Sir, no; I doeu't mean as it should be deserted. Fur
from that."

We walked again for a while, as before, until he ex-
plained :

" My wishes is, Sir, as it shall look, day and night, win-
ter and summer, as it has always looked, since she first
know'd it. If ever she should come a wandering back, I
wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her off, you un-
derstand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to't, and
to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain,
through the old winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then,
maybe, Mas'r Davy, seem' none but Missis G-unimidge
there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling; and
might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her
weary head where it was once so gay."

I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.

"Every night," said Mr. Peggotty, "as reg'lar as the
night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of
glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say
'Come back, my child, come back!' If ever there's a
knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your
aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her — not you
— that sees my fallen child! "

He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for
some minutes. During this interval, I glanced at Ham
again, and observing the same expression on his face, and
his eyes still directed to the distant light, I touched his
arm

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD 457

Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I
might have tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me.
When I at last inquired on what his thoughts were so bent,
he replied :

"On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon."

"On the life before you, do you mean?" He had
pointed confusedly out to sea.

"Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't right know how 'tis, but
from over yon there seemed to me to come — the end of it
like ; " looking at me as if he were waking, but with the
same determined face.

" What end? " I asked, possessed by my former fear.

"I doen't know," he said, thoughtfully; "I was calling
to mind that the beginning of it all did take place here —
and then the end come. But it's gone! Mas'r Davy," he
added; answering, as I think, my look; "you han't no call
to be afeerd of me : but I'm kiender muddled; I don't fare
to feel no matters," — which was as much as to say that he
was not himself, and quite confounded.

Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so,
and said no more. The remembrance of this, in connexion
with my former thought, however, haunted me at intervals,
even until the inexorable end came at its appointed time.

We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered.
Mrs. Gummidge, no longer moping in her especial corner,
was busy preparing breakfast. She took Mr. Peggotty' s
hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so comfortably
and softly, that I hardly knew her.

"Dan'l, my good man," said she, "you must eat and
drink, and keep up your strength, for without it you'll do
nowt. Try, that's a dear soul! And if I disturb you with
my clicketten," she meant her chattering, "tell me so,
Dan'l, and I won't."

When she had served us all, she withdrew to the win-
dow, where she sedulously employed herself in repairing
some shirts and other clothes belonging to Mr. Peggotty,
and neatly folding and packing them in an old oilskin bag,
such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking,
in the same quiet manner :

" All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l," said Mrs.
Gummidge, "I shall be alius here, and everythink will
look accordin' to your wishes. I'm a poor scholar, but I
shall write to you, odd times, when you're away, and send

458 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you'll write to me too,
Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon
your lone lorn journeys."

" You'll be a solitary woman here, I'm af eerd ! " said Mr.
Peggotty.

".No, no, Dan'l," she returned, "I shan't be that.
Doen't you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep
a Beein' for you" (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home), "again
you come back — to keep a Beein' here for any that may
hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set
outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh,
they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long
way off."

What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time ! She
was another woman. She was so devoted, she had such a
quick perception of what it would be well to say, and what
it would be well to leave unsaid ; she was so forgetful of
herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I
held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that
day! There were many things to be brought up from the
beach and stored in the outhouse — as oars, nets, sails, cord-
age, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like ; and
though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there
being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but
would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well
paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted all day long
in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to, and
fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands. As
to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely
lost the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved
an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy,
which was not the least astonishing part of the change that
had come over her. Querulousness was out of the ques-
tion. I did not even observe her voice to falter, or a tear
to escape from her eyes, the whole day through, until twi-
light ; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone to-
gether, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion,
she broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying,
and taking me to the door, said, " Ever bless you, Mas'r
Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear ! " Then she immedi-
ately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that
she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work
there, when he should awake. In short I left her, when I

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 459

went away at night, the prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty's
affliction ; and I could not meditate enough upon the lesson
that I read in Mrs. Gunmiidge, and the new experience she
unfolded to me.

It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a
melancholy manner through the town, I stopped at Mr.
Onier'" s door. Mr. Omer had taken it so much to heart,
his daughter told me, that he had been very low and poorly
all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe.

"A deceitful, bad-hearted girl," said Mrs. Joram.
" There was no good in her, ever! "

"Don't say so," I returned. " You don't think so."

" Yes, I do! " cried Mrs. Joram, angrily.

M Xo, no," said I.

Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very
stern and cross ; but she could not command her softer
self, and began to cry. I was young, to be sure; but I
thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and
fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very
well indeed.

" What will she ever do ! " sobbed Minnie. " Where will
she go ! What will become of her! Oh, how could she be
so cruel, to herself and him ! "

I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and
pretty girl ; and I was glad that she remembered it too, so
feelingly.

"My little Minnie," said Mrs. Joram, "has only just
now been got to sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing
for Enrly. All day long, little Minnie has cried for her,
and asked me, over and over again, whether Eni'ly was
wicked? What can I say to her, when Eni'ly tied a rib-
bon off her own neck round little Minnie's the last night
she was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside
her till she was fast asleep! The ribbon's round my little
Minnie's neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps, but what
can I do? Enrly is very bad, but they were fond of one
another. And the child knows nothing ! "

Mrs. Joram was so unhappy, that her husband came out
to take care of her. Leaving them together, I went home
to Peggotty's; more melancholy myself, if possible, than
I had been yet.

That good creature — I mean Peggotty — all untired by
her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's,

460 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

where she meant to stay till morning. An old woman,
who had been employed about the house for some weeks
past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was
the house's only other occupant besides myself. As I had
no occasion for her services, I sent her to bed, by no means
against her will; and sat down before the kitchen fire a
little while, to think about all this.

I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Bar-
kis, and was driving out with the tide towards the distance
at which Ham had looked so singularly in the morning,
when I was recalled from my wanderings by a knock at
the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was
not that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand,
and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a
child.

It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of
a footman to a person of distinction. I opened the door ;
and at first looked down, to my amazement, on nothing
but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of
itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss
Mowcher.

I might not have been prepared to give the little creature
a very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella,
which her utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had
shown me the " volatile " expression of face which had
made so great an impression on me at our first and last
meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so
earnest ; and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which
would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant)
she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner ;
that I rather inclined towards her.

" Miss Mowcher ! " said I, after glancing up and down
the empty street, without distinctly knowing what I ex-
pected to see besides; "how do you come here? What is
the matter? "

She motioned to me with her short right arm, to shut
the umbrella for her ; and passing me hurriedly, went into
tne kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed,
with the umbrella in my hand, I found her sitting on the
corner of the fender — it was a low iron one, with two flat
bars at top to stand plates upon — in the shadow of the
boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing
her hands upon her knees like a person in pain.

OF iJAVlD COPPERFIEL^ 461

Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely
visit, and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour,
I exclaimed again : " Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is
the matter ! are you ill? "

"My dear young soul/*' returned Miss Mowcher, squeez-
ing her hands upon her heart one over the other. "lam
ill here, I am very ill. To think that it should come to
this, when I might have known it and perhaps prevented
it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool! "

Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to her
figure) went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of
her little body to and fro ; while a most gigantic bonnet
rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.

"I am surprised," I began, "to see you so distressed and
serious " — when she interrupted me.

"Yes, it's always so!" she said. "They are all sur-
prised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full
grown, to see any natural feeling in a little thing like me !
They make a plaything of me, use me for their amusement,
throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that I
feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier ! Yes, yes,
that's the way. The old way ! "

"It may be, with others," I returned, "but I do assure
you it is not with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all
surprised to see you as you are now : I know so little of
you. I said, without consideration, what I thought."

"What can I do?" returned the little woman, standing
up and holding out her arms to show herself. " See ! What
I am, my father was ; and my sister is ; and my brother is.
I have worked for sister and brother these many years-
hard, Mr. Copperfield— all day. I must live. I do no
harm. If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to
make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a
jest of myself, them, and everything? If I do so, for the
time, whose fault is that? Mine? "

No. Not Miss Mowcher' s, I perceived.

" If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false
friend," pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me,
with reproachful earnestness, "how much of his help or
good will do you think / should ever have had? If little
Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the mak-
ing of herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him,
because of her misfortunes, when do you suppose her small

462 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

voice would have been heard? Little Mowcher would have
as much need to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of
pigmies ; but she couldn't do it. No. She might whistle
for her bread and butter till she died of Air! "

Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took
out her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.

" Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think
you have," she said, "that while I know well what I am,
I can be cheerful and endure it all. I am thankful for
myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way through
the world, without being beholden to anyone ; and that in
return for ail that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I
go along, I can throw bubbles back. If I don't brood over
all I want, it is the better for me, and not the worse for
anyone. If I am a plaything for you giants, be gentle
with me."

Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket,
looking at me with very intent expression all the while,
and pursued :

" I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I
am not able to walk as fast as you, with my short legs and
short breath, and I couldn't overtake you; but I guessed
where you came, and came after you. I have been here
before, to-day, but the good woman wasn't at home."

" Do you know her? " I demanded.

"I know of her, and about her," she replied, "from
Omer and Joram. I was there at seven o'clock this morn-
ing. Do you remember what Steerforth said to me about
this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at
the inn?"

The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher' s head, and the
greater bonnet on the wall, began to go backwards and
forwards again when she asked this question.

1 remembered very well what she referred to, having
lad it in my thoughts many times that day. I told her
so.

"May the Father of all Evil confound him," said the
little woman, holding up her forefinger between me and
her sparkling eyes ; " and ten times more confound that
wicked servant ; but I believed it was you who had a boy-
ish passion for her ! "

" I? " I repeated.

"Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune/* cried

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 463

Miss Mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she
went to and fro again upon the fender, " why did you praise
her so, and blush, and look disturbed? "

I could not conceal from myself that I had done this,
though for a reason very different from her supposition.

" What did I know? " said Miss Mowcher, taking out
her handkerchief again, and giving one little stamp on the
ground whenever, at short intervals, she applied it to her
eyes with both hands at once. " He was crossing you and
wheedling you, I saw ; and you were soft wax in his hands,
I saw. Had I left the room a minute, when his man told
me that ' Young Innocence ' (so he called you, and you
may call him ' Old Guilt' all the days of your life) had
set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him,
but his master was resolved that no harm should come of
it— more for your sake than for hers — and that that was
their business here? How could I but believe him? I saw
Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of her!
You were the first to mention her name. You owned to
an old admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red
and white, all at once when I spoke to you of her. What
could I think — what did I think — but that you were a
young libertine in everything but experience, and had fallen
into hands that had experience enough, and could manage
you (having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh!
They were afraid of my finding out the truth/' exclaimed
Miss Mowcher, getting off the fender, and trotting up and
down the kitchen with her two short arms distressfully
lifted up, " because I am a sharp little thing — I need be,
to get through the world at all ! — and they deceived me al-
together, and I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter,
which I fully believe was the beginning of her ever speak-
ing to Littimer, who was left behind on purpose ! "

I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, look-
ing at Miss Mowcher as she walked up and down the kit-
chen until she was out of breath : when she sat upon the
fender again, and, drying her face with her handkerchief,
shook her head for a long time, without otherwise moving,
and without breaking silence.

"My country rounds," she added at length, "brought
me to Norwich, Mr. Copperfield, the night before last.
WTiat I happened to find out there, about their secret way
of coming and going, without, you — which was strange—

*t>± PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the
eoacii from London last night, as it came through Norwich,
and was here this inorning Oh, oh, oh! too late! "

Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying
and fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting
her poor little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them,
and sat looking at the fire, like a large doll. I sat in 8
chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy re-
flections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her.

" I must go," she said at last, rising as she spoke. " It's
late. You don't mistrust me? "

Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever
when she asked me, I could not on that short challenge
answer no, quite frankly.

" Come ! " said she, accepting the offer of my hand to
help her over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my
face, " you know you wouldn't mistrust me, if I was a full-
sized woman ! "

I felt that there was much truth in this ; and I felt rather
ashamed of myself.

'•You are a young man,' she said, nodding. "Take a
word of advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to
associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, ex-
cept for a solid reason."

She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my
suspicion. I told her that I believed she had given me a
faithful account of herself, and that we had both been hap-
less instruments in designing hands. She thanked me, and
said I was a good fellow.

•■ Xow, mind! " she exclaimed, turning back on her way
to the door, and looking shrewdly at me, with her fore-
finger up again. "I have some reason to suspect, from
what I have heard — my ears are always open ; I can't afford
to spare what powers I have — that they are gone abroad
But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns,
while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going
about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you
shall Know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor
betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven ! And
Littiiner had better have a bloodhound at his back, than
little Mowcher ! "

I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when '
marked the look with which it was accompanied.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 465

'-Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would
trust a full-sized woman," said the little creature, touching
me appealingly on the wrist. " If ever you see me again,
unlike what I am now, and like what I was when you first
saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind
that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing.
Think of me at home with my brother like myself and
sister like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps
you won't, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if T
can be distressed and serious. Good night ! "

T gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different
opinion of her from that which I had hitherto entertained,
and opened the door to let her out. It was not a trifling
business to get the great umbrella up, and properly bal-
anced in her grasp ; but at last I successfully accomplished
this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the
rain, without the least appearance of having anybody un-
derneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from
some overcharged waterspout sent it toppling over, on one
side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling violently to
get it right. Aftei making one or two sallies to her relief,
which were rendered futile by the umbrella's hopping on
again, like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came
in, went to bed, and slept till morning.

In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my
old nurse, and we went at an early hour to the coach-office,
where Mrs. Grummidge and Ham were waiting to take
leave of us.

" Mas'r Davy," Ham whispered, drawing me aside, wnne
Mr. Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, " his
life is quite broke up. He doen't know wheer he's gomg;
he doen't know what's afore him; he's bound upon a voy-
age that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take
my wured for't, unless he finds what he-'s a seeking of. I
am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy? "

<• Trust me, I will indeed," said I, shaking hands with
Ham earnestly.

"Thank'ee. Thank'ee, very kind, Sir. One thmg ±ur-
der I'm in good employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I
han't no way now of spending what I gets. Money's of
no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it
out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Thougn
as to that, Sir," and he spoke very steadily and mildly,
30

466 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" you're net to think but I shall work at all times, like a
man, and act the best that lays in my power ! "

I told him I was well convinced of it ; and I hinted that
I hoped the time might even come, when he would cease
to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now.

"No, Sir," he said, shaking his head, "all that's past
and over with me, Sir. No one can never fill the place
that's empty. But you'll bear in mind about the money,
as theer's at all times some laying by for him? "

Eeminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a
steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the
bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised to do so.
We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him,
even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his
modest fortitude and his great sorrow.

As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to de-
scribe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach,
seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the
tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the
people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should
enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better
leave her sitting on a baker's doorstep, out of breath, with
no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her
shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable dis-
tance.

When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was
to look about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her
brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find
one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chan-
dler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we
had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an
eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a
proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs.
Crupp's approval,. but quite the contrary. I ought to ob-
serve, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind,
that she was much offended by Peggotty' s tucking up her
widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place,
and setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp
regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said,
was a thing she never allowed.

Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the
way to London, for which I was not unprepared. It was,
that he purposed first seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. ±61

bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between
them; with the view of sparing the mother's feelmgs as
much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as
mildly as I could what his wrong was, and what my own
share" in his injury. I said he wa* a man in very common
life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and that
I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to
see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o'clock m
the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the
letter myself by the first coach in the morning.

At the appointed time, we stood at the door— the aooi
of that house where I had been, a few days since, so
happy : where my youthful confidence and warmth of heart
had been yielded up so freely: which was closed against
me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin.

No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had
replaced his, on the occasion of my last visit, answered to
our summons, and went before us to the drawing-room.
Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle glided, as
we went in, from another part of the room, and stood be-
hind her chair.

I saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from
himself what he had done. It was very pale, and bore the
traces of deeper emotion than my letter alone, weakened
by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it,
would have been likely to create. I thought her more like
him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than
saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion.

She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immov-
able, passionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could
disturb. She looked very steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty
when he stood before her; and he looked quite as stead-
fastly at her. Rosa Dartle' s keen glance comprehended
all of us. For some moments not a word was spoken. She
motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low
voice, "I shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit aownin
this house. I'd sooner stand." And this was succeeded
by another silence, which she broke thus :

" I know, with deep regret, what has brought you nere
What do you want of me? What do you ask me to do .

He put his hat under his arm, and feeling m his breast foi

Emily's letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her.

" Please to read that, ma'am, lhat's my niece's hand! .

468 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

She read it, in the same stately and impassive way, —
untouched by its contents, as far as I could see, — and
returned it to him.

"' Unless he brings me back a lady,' " said Mr. Peg-
gotty, tracing out that part with his finger. " I come to
know, ma'am, whether he will keep his wured? "

"No," she returned.

" Why not? " said Mr. Peggotty.

"It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You
cannot fail to know that she is far below him."

" Raise her up ! " said Mr. Peggotty.

" She is uneducated and ignorant."

"Maybe she's uot; maybe she is," said Mr. Peggotty
"I think not, ma'am; but I'm no judge of them things.
Teach her better ! "

" Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am
very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render
such a thing impossible, if nothing else did."

" Hark to this, ma'am," he returned, slowly and quietly.
" You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If
she was a hundred times my child, I couldn't love her
more. You doen't know what it is to lose your child. I
do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt
to me (if they was mine) to buy her back ! But, save her
from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us.
Not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of as
that's lived along with her, and had her for their all in
all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face
again. We'll be content to let her be ; we'll be content to
think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun
and sky; we'll be content to trust her to her husband, — to
her little children, p'raps, — and bide the time when all of
us shall be alike in quality afore our God ! "

The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not de-
void of all effect. She still preserved her proud manner*
but there was a touch of softness in her voice, as she an-
swered :

"I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations.
But I am sorry to repeat, it is impossible. Such a mar-
riage would irretrievably blight my son's career, and ruin
his prospects. Nothing is more certain than that it never
can take place, and never will. If there is any other com'
pensation "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 4G9

"lam looking at the likeness Of the face," interrupted
Mr. Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, " that has
looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, m my boat —
wheer not? — smiling and friendly, when it was so treacher-
ous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the like-
ness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought
of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin, it's as
bad. I doen't know, being a lady's, but what it's worse."

She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush over-
spread her features ; and she said, in an intolerant manner,
grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands :

•• YThat compensation can you make to me for opening
such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to
mine? What is your separation to ours? "

Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head
to whisper, but she would not hear a word.

" "N"o, Rosa, not a word ! Let the man listen to what I
say ! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom
its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified
from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no sep-
arate existence since his birth, — to take up in a moment
with a miserable girl, and avoid me ! To repay my confi-
dence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me
for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's
claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude — claims that
every day and hour of his life should have strengthened
into ties that nothing could be proof against ! Is this no
injury?"

Again Eosa Dartle tried to soothe her ; again ineffectually.

" I say, Pvosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon
the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater pur-
pose. Let him go where he will, with the means that my
love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by
long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does.
Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back.
Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come
near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to
make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he
comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This
is my right. This is the acknowledgment I will have.
This is the separation that there is between us ! And is
this," she added, looking at her visitor with the proud
intolerant air with which she had begun, " no injury? "

470 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

While I heard and saw the mother as she said these
words, I seemed to hear and see the son, defying them.
All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful
spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now
of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her
character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest
springs, the same.

She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her formei re-
straint, that it was useless to hear more, or to say more,
and that she begged to put an end to the interview. She
rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when Mr.
Peggotty signified that it was needless.

" Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no
more to say, ma'am," he remarked, as he moved towards
the door. " I come heer with no hope, and I take away no
hope. I have done what I thowt should be done, but I
never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning where
I do. This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur
me to be in my right senses and expect it."

With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her
elbow-chair, a picture of a noble presence and a handsome
face.

We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with
glass sides and roof, over which a vine was trained. Its
leaves and shoots were green then, and the day being
sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were
thrown open. R,osa Dartle, entering this way with a noise-
less step, when we were close to them, addressed herself
to me:

" You do well," she said, " indeed, to bring this fellow
here ! "

Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened hei
face, and flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have
thought compressible even into that face. The scar made
by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of hei
features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had
seen before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely
lifted up her hand and struck it.

"This is a fellow," she said, "to champion and bring
here, is he not? You are a true man ! "

"Miss Dartle," I returned, "you are surely not so unjust
as to condemn me?"

"Why do you bring division between these two mad

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 471

creatures?'' she returned. "Don't you know that they
ar both mad with their own self-will and pride? "

" Is it my doing ? " I returned.

" Is it your doing! " she retorted. " Why do you bring
this man here?"

" He is a deeply injured man, Miss Dartre," I replied.
; You may not know it."

"1 know that James Steerforth," she said, with her
hand on her bosom, as if *o prevent the storm that was
raging there, from being loud, " has a false, corrupt heart,
and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about this
fellow, and his common niece? "

- 'Miss Dartle," I returned, "you deepen the injury. It
is sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you
do him a great wrong."

"I do him no wrong," she returned. "They are a de-
praved, worthless set. I would have her whipped! "

Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out
at the door.

" Oh, shame, Miss Dartle ! shame ! " I said indignantly
" How can you bear to trample on his undeserved afflic-
tion!" ■

"I would trample on them all," she answered. I
would have his house pulled down. I would have her
branded on the face, drest in rags, and cast out in the
streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgment
on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it!
I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infa-
mous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could
hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of
comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour,
and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for Life
itself."

The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sen-
sible, but a weak impression of the passion by which she
was possessed, and which made itself articulate in her
whole figure, though her voice, instead of being raised, was
lower than usual. No description I could give of her
would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire
deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in
many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as
that.

When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and

472 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

thoughtfully down the hill. He told me, as soon as i
came up with him, that having now discharged his mind
of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant " to
set out on his travels," that night. I asked him where he
meant to go? He only answered, "I'm a going, Sir, to
seek my niece."

We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's
shop, and there I found an opportunity of repeating to
Peggotty what he had said to me. She informed me, in
return, that he had said the same to her that morning.
She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but
she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind.

I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances,
and we all three dined together off a beefsteak pie — which
was one of the many good things for which Peggotty was
famous— and which was curiously flavoured on this occa-
sion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee,
butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and
walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After
dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without
talking much ; and then Mr. Peggotty got up, and brought
his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the
table.

He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a
small sum on account of his legacy; barely enough, I
should have thought, to keep him for a month. He prom-
ised to communicate with me, when anything befell him ;
and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and
bade us both " Good bye ! "

"All good attend you, dear old woman," he said, em-
bracing Peggotty, "and you too, Mas'r Davy!" shaking
hands with me. "I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide.
If she should come home while I'm away — but ah, that
ain't like to be! — or if I should bring her back, my mean-
ing is, that she and me shall live and die where no one
can't reproach her. If any hurt should come to me, remem-
ber that the last words I left for her was, ' My unchanged
rove is with m}r darling child, and I forgive her! ' "

He said this solemnly, bare-headed ; then, putting on his
hat, he went down the stairs, and away. We followed to
the door. It was a warm, dusty evening, just the time
when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that
by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 47b

fr-ead of feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sun-
shine. He turned, alone, at the corner of our shady street*
into a glow of light, in which we lost him. Rarely did
that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night,
rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch
the falling rain, or hear the wind, but I thought of his
solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the
words :

"I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt
should come to me, remember that the last words I left for
her was, ' My unchanged love is with my darling child, and
I forgive her ! ' "

CHAPTER XXXI11

BLISSFUL.

All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than
ever. Her idea was my refuge in disappointment and dis-
tress, and made some amends to me, even for the loss of
my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied others,
the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora.
The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the
world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora
high above the world. I don't think I had any definite
idea where Dora came from, or in what degree she was re-
lated to a higher order of beings ; but I am quite sure I
should have scouted the notion of her being simply human,
like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt.

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was
not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was
saturated through and through. Enough love might have
been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown
anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough
within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.

The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came
back, was to take a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the
subject of a venerable riddle of my childhood, to go " round
and round the house, without ever touching the house,"
thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this incom-
prehensible conundrum was the moon. Xo matter what it
was, I, the moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round

474 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and round the house and garden for two hours, looking
through crevices in the palings, getting my chin by dint of
violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top, blowing
kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically call-
ing on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora — I don't
exactly know what from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps
from mice, to which she had a great objection.

My love was so much on my mind, and it was so natural
to me to confide in Peggotty, when I found her again by
my side of an evening with the old set of industrial imple-
ments, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, that I im-
parted to her, in a sufficiently rouDdabout way, my great
secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not
get her into my view of the case at all. She was auda-
ciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to under-
stand why I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited
about it. "The young lady might think herself well off,"
she observed, "to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,"
she said- "what did the gentleman expect, for gracious
sake!"

I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's Proctorial gown
and stiff cravat took Peggotty down a little, and inspired
her with a greater reverence for the man who was gradu-
ally becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes everv
day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to
beam when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a
little lighthouse in a sea of stationery. And by-the-by,
it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, I re-
member, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges
and doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had
known her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their
senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had been pro-
posed to them; how Dora might have sung and played
upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of
madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an
inch out of his road !

I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in
the flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against
them all. The Bench was nothing to me but an insensible
blunderer The Bar haa lo more tenderness or poetry in
it, than the bar of a public-house.

Taking the management of Peggotty' s affairs into my
own hands, with no little pride, I proved the will, and

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 475

came to a settlement with the Legacy Duty Office, and took
her to the Bank, and soon got everything into an orderly
train. We varied the legal character of these proceedings
by going to see some perspiring Waxwork, in Fleet Street
(melted, I should hope, these twenty years) ; and by vis-
iting Miss Linwood's Exhibition, which I remember as a
Mausoleum of needlework, favourable to self-examination
and repentance ; and by inspecting the Tower of London ;
and going to the top of St. Paul's. All these wonders
afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to en-
joy, under existing circumstances: except, I think, St.
Paul's, which from her long attachment to her workbox,
became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some
particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art.

Peggotty' s business, which was what we used to call
" common-form business " in the Commons (and very light
and lucrative the common-form business was), being set-
tled, I took her down to the office one morning to pay her
bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to
get a gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; but as I
knew he would be back directly, our place lying close to
the Surrogate's, and to the Vicar-General's Office too, I
told Peggotty to wait.

We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as
regarded Probate transactions ; generally making it a rule
to look more or less cut up, when we had to deal with
clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, we
were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence cli-
ents. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find
Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the shock of Mr. Bar-
kis's decease; and indeed he came in like a bridegroom.

But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we
saw, in company with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very
little changed. His hair looked as thick, and was certainly
as black as ever ; and his glance was as little to be trusted
as of old.

"Ah, Copperfield? " said Mr Spenlow "You know
this gentleman, I believe? "

I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely
recognised him. He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted
\o meet us two together ; but quickly decided what to do,
and came up to me.

"I hope," he said, "that you are doing well?*

176 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" It can hardly be interesting to you," said I. " Yes,
if you wish to know."

We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to
Peggotty

"And you," said he. "lam sorry to observe that you
have lost your husband."

"It's not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murd-
stone," replied Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. " I
am glad to hope that there is nobody to blame for this one,
- nobody to answer for it."

"Ha!" said he; "that's a comfortable reflection You
have done your duty? "

"I have not worn anybody's life away," said Peggotty,
"I am thankful to think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have
not worrited and frightened any sweet creetur to an early
grave ! "

He eyed her gloomily — remorsefully I thought — for an
instant; and said, turning his head towards me, but look-
ing at my feet instead of my face :

" We are not likely to encounter soon again ; — a source
of satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as
this can never be agreeable. I do not expect that you, who
always rebelled against my just authority, exerted for your
benefit and reformation, should owe me any good- will now
There is an antipathy between us "

"An old one, I believe? " said I, interrupting him.

He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could com©
from his dark eyes.

" It rankled in your baby breast, " he said. " It embittered
the life of your poor mother. You are right. I hope you
may do better, yet ; I hope you may correct yourself. "

Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on
in a low voice, in a corner of the outer office, by passing
into Mr. Spenlow's room, and saying aloud, in his smooth-
est manner :

"Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed
to family differences, and know how complicated and diffi-
cult they always are ! " With that, he paid the money for
his licence ; and, receiving it neatly folded from Mr. Spen-
low, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish
for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office.

I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself
to be silent under his words, if I had had less difficulty in

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 477

Impressing upon Peggotty (who was only angry on my
account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for
recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace.
She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound
for an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind
of our old injuries, and to make the best I could of it,
before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks.

Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connex-
ion between Mr. Murdstone and myself was ; which I was
glad of, for I could not bear to acknowledge him, even in
my own breast, remembering what I did of the history of
my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he
thought anything about the matter, that my aunt was the
leader of the state party in our family, and that there was
a rebel party commanded by somebody else — so I gathered
at least from what he said, while we were waiting for Mr.
Tiffey to make out Peggotty' s bill of costs.

"Miss Trotwood," he remarked, "is very firm, no doubt,
and not likely to give way to opposition. I have an admi-
ration for her character, and I may congratulate you, Cop-
perfield, on being on the right side. Differences between
relations are much to be deplored — but they are extremely
general — and the great thing is, to be on the right side : "
meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest.

" Rather a good marriage this, I believe? " said Mr. Speu-
low.

I explained that I knew nothing about it.

"Indeed!" he said. "Speaking from the few words
Mr. Murdstone dropped — as a man frequently does on
these occasions— and from what Miss Murdstone let fall,
I should say it was rather a good marriage."

" Do you mean that there is money, Sir? " I asked

"Yes," said Mr. Spenlow, "I understand there's money
Beauty too, I am told."

" Indeed? Is his new wife young ? "

"Just of age," said Mr. Spenlow. "So lately, that I
should think they had been waiting foi that."

"Lord deliver her!" said Peggotty. So very emphat-
ically and unexpectedly, that we were all three discom-
posed; until Tiffey came in with the bill.

Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr.
Spenlow, to look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in
Ms cravat and rubbing it softly, went over the items with

478 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

a deprecatory air — as if it were all Jorkins's doing -and
handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh.

" Yes," he said- " That's right. Quite right. I should
have been extremely happy, Copperfield, to have limited
these charges to the actual expenditure out of pocket; but
it is an irksome incident in my professional life, that I am
not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I have a partner
—Mr. Jorkins."

As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was
the next thing to making no charge at all, T expressed my
acknowledgments on Peggotty's behalf, and paid Tiffey in
bank-notes. Peggotty then retired to her lodging, and
Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a
divorce suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute
(repealed now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have
seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were
these. The husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin,
had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only ; sup-
pressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself
as comfortable as he expected. Not finding himself as
comfortable as he expected, or being a little fatigued with
his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward, by a friend,
after being married a year or two, and declared that his
name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not
married at all Which the Court confirmed, to his great
satisfaction.

I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice
of this, and was not even frightened out of them by the
bushel of wheat which reconciles all anomalies.

But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He said,
Look at the world, there was good and evil in that ; look
at the ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in that.
It was all part of a system. Very good There you
were!

I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that
possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we
got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the
work ; but I confessed that I thought we might improve
the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would partic-
ularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as
not being worthy of my gentlemanly character ; but that
he would be glad to he.Rr from me of what improvement T
thought the Commons susceptible?

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 479

Taking tha. part of the Commons which happened to be
nearest to us— for our man was unmarried by this time,
and we were out of Court, and strolling past the Preroga-
ive Office— I submitted that I thought the Prerogative
Othce rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow
inquired in what respect? 1 replied, with all due defer-
ence to his experience (but with more deference, I am
afraid, to his being Dora's father), that perhaps it was a
little nonsensical that the Registry of that Court, containing
the original wills of all persons leaving effects within the
immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,
should be an accidental building, never designed for the
purpose, leased by the registrars for th'eir own private emol-
ument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fireproof, choked
with the important documents it held, and positively, from
theroof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the
registrars, who took great fees from the public, and
crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere,
having no other object than to get rid of them cheaply.
That, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that these regis-
trars in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or nine
thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits of
the deputy-registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be
obliged to spend a little of that money, in finding a reason-
ably safe place for the important documents which all
classes of people were compelled to hand over to them,
whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little
unjust that all the great offices in this great office, should
be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-
clerks in the cold dark room up-stairs were the worst re-
warded, and the least considered men, doing important
services, in London. That perhaps it was a little indecent
that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to find
the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue
of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman, a plural-
ist, the holder of a stall in a cathedral, and what not),
while the public was put to the inconvenience of which we
had a specimen every afternoon when the office was busy,
and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps
in snort, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canter-
bury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such a perni-
cious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away in a-

480 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, which few people knew
it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside
down, long ago.

Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the
subject, and th^n argued this question with me as he had
argued the other. He said, What was it after all? It was
a question of feeling. If the public felt that their wills
were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office
was not to be made better, who was the worse for it?
Nobody. "Who was the better for it? All the sinecurists
Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not
be a perfect system; nothing was perfect; but what he
objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the
Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert
the wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country
would cease to be glorious. He considered it the principle
of a gentleman to take things as he found them ; and he
had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time.
I deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it
myself. I find he was right, however ; for it has not only
lasted to the present moment, but has done so in the teeth of
a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eigh-
teen years ago, when all these objections of mine were set
forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was
described as equal to the accumulation of only two years
and a half more. What they have done with them since ;
whether they have lost many, or whether they sell any, now
and then, to the butter-shops ; I don't know. I am glad
mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet awhile,

I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter,
because here it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow
and I falling into this conversation, prolonged it and our
saunter to and fro, until we diverged into general topics.
And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow told
me this day week was Dora's birthday, and he would be
glad if I would come down and join a little picnic on the
occasion. I went out of my senses immediately ; became a
mere driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged
sheet of note-paper, "Favoured by papa. To remind;"
and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage.

I think I committed every possible absurdity, in the way
of preparation for this blessed event. I turn hot when I
remember the cravat I bought My boots might be placed

OF DAVID COPPERF1ELD. 481

in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and
sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a deli-
cate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost' to
a declaration. There were crackers in it with the tender-
est mottoes that could be got for money. At six in the
morning, I was in Covent Garden Market, buying a bouquet
for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a gallant
grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep
it fresh, trotting down to Norwood.

I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pre-
tended not to see her, and rode past the house pretending
to be anxiously looking for it, I committed two small fool-
eries which other young gentlemen in my circumstances
might have committed — because they came so very natural
to me. But oh ! when I did find the house, and did dis-
mount at the garden gate, and drag those stony-hearted
boots across the lawn to Dora sitting on a garden-seat under
a lilac-tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful
morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and
a dress of celestial blue !

There was a young lady with her — comparatively stricken
in years — almost twenty, I should say. Her name was
Miss Mills, and Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom
friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills !

Jip was there, and Jip would bark at me again. "When
I presented my bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy.
Well he might. If he had the least idea how I adored his
mistress, well he might !

" Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield ! What dear flowers ! "
said Dora.

I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying
the best form of words for three miles) that I thought them
beautiful before I saw them so near her. But I couldn't
manage it. She was too bewildering. To see her lay the
flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all pres-
ence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I
wonder I didn't say, " Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss
Mills. Let me die here ! "

Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip
growled, and wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed,
and held them a little closer to Jip, to make him. Then
Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, and wor-
ried imaginary cats in ifc. Then Dora beat him, and pouted,
33

482 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and said, " my poor beautiful flowers ! " as compassionately ,
I thought, as if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had?

"You'll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield," said Dora,
<; that that cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone
to her brother's marriage, and will be away at least three
weeks. Isn't that delightful? "

I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all
that was delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss
Mills, with an air of superior wisdom and benevolence.
smiled upon us.

" She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw," said
Dora " You can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking
she is, Julia."

" Yes, I can, my dear! " said Julia.

" You can, perhaps, love," returned Dora, with her hand
on Julia's. "Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at
first."

I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in
the course of a chequered existence ; and that to these, per-
haps, I might refer that wise benignity of manner which I
had already noticed. I found, in the course of the day,
that this was the case : Miss Mills having been unhappy in
a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired
from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still
to take a calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves
of youth.

But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora
went to him, saying, " Look, papa, what beautiful flowers ! "
And Miss Mills smiled thoughtfully, as who should say,
" Ye May-flies, enjoy your brief existence in the bright
morning of life ! " And we all walked from the lawn towards
the carriage, which was getting ready.

I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had
such another. There were only those three, their hamper,
my hamper, and the guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of
course, the phaeton was open; and I rode behind it, and
Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking towards me.
She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and
wouldn't allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear
he should crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often
reireshed herself with its fragrance. Our eyes at those
times often met ; and my great astonishment is that I didn't
gc over the head of. my gallaDt grey into the carriage

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 483

There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of
dust, I believe. I have a faint impression that Mr. Spen-
low remonstrated with me for riding in it ; but I knew of
none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty about
Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and
asked me what I thought of the prospect. I said, it was
delightful, and I dare say it was ; but it was all Dora to
me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The
south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges
were all Dora, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills un-
derstood me. Miss Mills alone could enter into my feelings
thoroughly.

I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour
I know as little where we went. Perhaps it was near
Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night magician opened
up the place for the day, and shut it for ever when we came
away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft
turf. There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as
the eye could see, a rich landscape.

It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us :
and my jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But
all of my own sex — especially one impostor, three or four
years my elder, with a red whisker, on which he established
an amount of presumption not to be endured — were my
mortal foes.

We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in
getting dinner ready. Red Whisker pretended he could
make a salad (which I don't believe), and obtruded himself
on public notice. Some of the young ladies washed the
lettuces for him, and sliced them under his directions.
Dora was among these. I felt that Fate had pitted me
against this man, and one of us must fall.

Eed Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could
eat it. Nothing should have induced me to touch It!) and
voted himself into the charge of the wine-cellar, which he
constructed, being an ingenious beast, in the hollow trunk
of a tree. By-and-by I saw him, with the majority of a
lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of "Dora !

I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some
time after this baleful object presented itself to my view.
I was very merry, I know ; but it was hollow merriment.
I attached myself to a young creature in pink, with little
eyes, and flirted with her desperately She received my

484 PERSONAL HISTORY A.ND EXPERIENCE

attentions with favour ; but whether on my account solely
or because she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can't
say. Dora's health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected
to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume
it immediately afterwards, I caught Dora's eye as I bowed
to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked
at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.

The young creature in pink had a mother in green ; and
I rather think the latter separated us from motives of policy.
Howbeit, there was a general breaking up of the party,
while the remnants of the dinner were being put away ; and
I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and
remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend
that I was not well, and fly — I don't know where — upon
my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me.

"Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, "you are dull."

I begged her pardon. Not at all

"And, Dora," said Miss Mills, "you are dull."

Oh dear no ! Not in the least.

"Mr. Copperfield and Dora," said Miss Mills, with an
almost venerable air. " Enough of this. Do not allow a
trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring,
which, once put forth and blighted, can not be renewed.
I speak," said Miss Mills, "from experience of the past —
the remote irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which
sparkle in the sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice ;
the oasis in the Desert of Sahara, must not be plucked up
idly."

I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that
extraordinary extent; but I took Dora's little hand and
kissed it — and she let me ! I kissed Miss Mills's hand ; and
we all seemed, to my thinking, to go straight up to the
seventh heaven.

We did not come down again. We stayed up there all
the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the
trees: I with Dora's shy arm drawn through mine: and
Heaven knows, folly as it all was, it would have been a
happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish
feelings, and have strayed among the trees for ever !

But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and
talking, and calling "where's Dora! " So we went back,
and they wanted Dora to sing. Red Whisker would have
got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora told him

OF DAVID COPPERFLELD. 485

nobody knew where it was but I. So Red TYhisker was
done for in a moment; and /got it, and /unlocked it, and
/ took the guitar out, and / sat by her, and / held her hand-
kerchief and gloves, and / drank in every note of her dear
voice, and she sang to me who loved her, and all the others
might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing
to do with it !

I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too
happy to be real, and that I should wake in Buckingham
Street presently, and hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups
in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang, and others
sang, and Miss Mills sang— about the slumbering echoes m
the caverns of Memory ; as if she were a hundred years old
— and the evening came on ; and we had tea, with the kettle
boiling gipsy-fashion ; and I was still as happy as ever.

I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and
the other people, defeated Red Whisker and all, went their,
several ways, and we went ours through the still evening
and the dying light, with sweet scents rising up around us.
Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne-
honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that
made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the mer-
chant who adulterated it!— and being fast asleep in a corner
of the carriage, I rode by the side, and talked to Dora. She
admired my horse and patted him— oh, what a dear little
hand it looked upon a horse !— and her shawl would not
keep right, and now and then I drew it round her with my
arm : and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was,
and to understand that he must make up his mind to be
friends with me.

That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though
quite used-up recluse; that little patriarch of something
less than twenty, who had done with the world, and mustn't
on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of
Memory awakened ; what a kind thing she did !

"Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, "come to this side
of the carriage a moment— if you can spare a moment. I
want to speak to you."

Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of
Miss Mills, with my hand upon the carriage-door!

"Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home
with me the day after to-morrow. If you would like to
call, I am sure papa would be happy to see you."

486 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss
Mills's head, and store Miss Mills's address in the securest
corner of my memory! What could I do but tell Miss
Mills, with grateful looks and fervent words, how much I
appreciated her good offices, and what an inestimable value
I set upon her friendship !

Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, " Go
back to Dora ! " and I went ; and Dora leaned out of the
carriage to talk to me, and we talked all the rest of the
way j and I rode my gallant grey so close to the wheel that
I grazed his near fore-leg against it, and "took the bark
off," as his owner told me, " to the tune of three pun' sivin "
— which I paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much
joy. What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, mur-
muring verses and recalling, I suppose, the ancient days
when she and earth had anything in common.

Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it
many hours too soon ; but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a
little short of it and said, " You must come in, Copperfield,
and rest ! " and I consenting, we had sandwiches and wine-
and- water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked so
lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there
staring, in a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow in-
spired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave.
So we parted ; I riding all the way to London with the
farewell touch of Dora's hand still light on mine, recalling
every incident and word ten thousand times ; lying down
in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as
ever was carried out of his five wits by love.

When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare
my passion to Dora, and know my fate. Happiness or
misery was now the question. There was no other question
that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the
answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretched-
ness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety
of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place
between Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at
a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a
declaration.

How many times 1 went up and down the street, and
round the square — painfully aware of being a much better
answer to the old riddle than the original one — before I
«ould persuade myself to go up the steps and knock, is no

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 487

matter now Even when, at last, I had knocked, and
was waiting at die door, I had some flurried thought of
asking if that were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor
Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. But I kept my
ground.

Mr. Mills was not ar home. I did not expect he would
be. Nobody wanted him. Miss Mills was at home. Miss
Mills would do.

I was shown into a room u; - fairs, where Miss Mills and
Dora were. Jip was there, .Miss Mills was copying music
(I recollect, it was a new song, called Affection's Dirge),
and Dora was painting flowers. What were my feelings,
when I recognised my own flowers; the identical Co vent
Garden Market purchase! I cannot say that they were
very like, or that they particularly resembled any flowers
that have ever come under my observation; but I knew
from the paper round them, which was accurately copied,
what the composition was.

Miss .Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her
Papa was not at home : though I thought we all bore that
with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational for a few
minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon Affection's
Dirge, got up, and left the room.

I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow.
"I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home
at night," said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. "It
was a long way for him."

I began to think I would do it to-day.
"It was a long way for him,9' said I, "for he had not' -
ing to uphold him on the journey."

'• Wasn't he fed, poor thing? " asked Dora.
I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow.
■< Ye— yes," I said, "he was well taken care of. _ I mean
he had not the unutterable happiness that I had in being
so near you."

Dora bent her head over her drawing, and said, after a
little while— I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever,
and with my legs in a very rigid state —

" You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness your-
self, at one time of the day."

I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on
the soot.

"You didn't care for that happiness in the least, said

*SS PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Dora, slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head,
"when you were sitting by Miss Kitt."

Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in
pink, with the little eyes.

" Though certainly I don't know why you should," said
Dora, " or why you should call it a happiness at all. But
of course you don't mean what you say. And I am sure
no one doubts your being at liberty to do whatever you like.
Jip, you naughty boy, come here ! "

I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I
intercepted Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of
eloquence. I never stopped for a word. I told her how I
loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told
her that I idolised and worshipped her. Jip barked madly
all the time.

"When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my
eloquence increased so much the more. If she would like
me to die for her, she had but to say the word, and I was
ready. Life without Dora's love was not a thing to have
on any terms. I couldn't bear it, and I wouldn't. I had
loved her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her.
I loved her at that minute to distraction. I should always
love her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had loved
before, and lovers would love again ; but no lover had ever
loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as I loved
Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of
us, in his own way, got more mad every moment.

Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by
and-by, quiet enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, wink-
ing peacefully at me. It was off my mind. I was in a
state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged.

I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in
marriage. We must have had some, because Dora stipu-
lated that we were never to be married without her papa's
consent. But, in our youthful ecstasy, I don't think that
we really looked before us or behind us ; or had any aspira-
tion beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our
secret from Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never
entered my head, then, that there was anything dishonour-
able in that.

Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora,
going to find her, brought her back ; — I apprehend, because
there was a tendency in what had passed to awaken the

OF PAVID COPPERFIELD 489

slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory. But she
gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting
friendship, and spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice
from the Cloister.

What an idle time it was! What an unsubstantial,
happ}-, foolish time it was !

When I measured Dora's finger for a ring that was to be
made of forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I
took the measure, found me out, and laughed over his order-
book, and charged me anything he liked for the pretty little
toy, with its blue stones — so associated in my remembrance
with Dora's hand, that yesterday, when I saw such another,
by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a
momentary stirring in my heart, like pain !

When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full
of my own interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora,
and of being beloved, so much, that if I had walked the
air, I could not have been more above the people not so
situated, who were creeping on the earth!

When we had those meetings in the garden of the
square, and sat within the dingy summer-house, so happy,
that I love the London sparrows to this hour, for noth-
ing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky
feathers !

When we had our first great quarrel (within a week of
our betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, en-
closed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used
the terrible expression that " our love had begun in folly,
and ended in madness ! " which dreadful words occasioned
me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over !

When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills,
whom I saw by stealth in a back-kitchen where there was
a mangle, and implored Miss Mills to interpose between us
and avert insanity. When Miss Mills undertook the office
and returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the pulpit of
her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoid-
ance of the Desert of Sahara !

When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again,
that the back-kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love's
owl temple, where we arranged, a plan of correspondence
through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at least one
letter on each side every day!

What an idle time! What an unsubstantial, happy >

490 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

foolish time ! Of all the times or .nine tnat Time has in his
grip, there is none that in one retrospection I can smile at
half so much, and think of half so tenderly

CHAPTER XXXIV

MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME.

i wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged,
I wrote her a long letter, in which I tried to make hei
comprehend how blest I was, and what a darling Dora was.
I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a thoughtless passion
which would ever yield to any other, or had the least re-
semblance to the boyish, fancies that we used to joke about.
I assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable,
and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever been
known.

Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my
open window, and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes
and gentle face came stealing over me, it shed such a peace-
ful influence upon the hurry and agitation in which I had
been living lately, and of which my very happiness partook
in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. I remember
that I sat resting my head upon my hand, when the letter
was half done, cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes were
one of the elements of my natural home. As if, in the
retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her
presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As
if, in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all
emotions ; my heart turned naturally there, and found its
refuge and best friend.

Of Steerforth, I said nothing. I only told her there had
been sad grief at Yarmouth, on account of Emily's flight;
and that on me it made a double wound, by reason of the
circumstances attending it. I knew how quick she always
was to divine the truth, and that she would never be the
first to breathe his name

To this letter, I received an answer by return of post.
As I read it, I seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It
was like her cordial voice in my ears. What can I say
more?

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 491

While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had
called twice or thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being
informed by Peggotty (who always volunteered that in-
formation to whomsoever would receive it), that she was
my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured acquaint-
ance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her
about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid the chat
was all on her own side, and of immoderate length, as she
wras very difficult indeed to stop, God bless her! when she
had me for. her theme.

This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on
a certain afternoon of his own appointing, which was now
come, but that Mrs. Crupp had resigned everything apper-
taining to her office ( the salary excepted) until Peggotty
should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after hold-
ing divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very
high-pitched voice, on the staircase — with some invisible
Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she wae
quite alone at those times — addressed a letter to me, de-
veloping her views. Beginning it with that statement of
universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her
life, namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to
inform me that she had once seen very different days, but
that at all periods of her existence she had had a constitu-
tional objection to spies, intruders, and informers She
named no names, she said ; let them the cap fitted, wear
it ; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in wid-
ders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever ac-
customed herself to look down upon. If a gentleman was
the victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still nam-
ing no names) , that was his own pleasure. He had a right
to please himself ; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp,
stipulated for, was, that she should not be "brought in
contract " with such persons. Therefore she begged to be
excused from any further attendance on the top set, until
things were as they formerly was, and as they could be
wished to be ; and further mentioned that her little book
would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday
morning, when she requested an immediate settlement of
the same, with the benevolent view of saving trouble, " and
an ill-con wenience " to all parties.

After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls
on the stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring

492 PERSONAL HISTORY A^D EXPERIENCE

to delude Peggotty into breaking her legs. I found it
rather harassing to live in this state of siege, but was too
much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out of it.

" My dear Copperfield," cried Traddles, punctually ap-
pearing at my door, in spite of all these obstacles,, " how
do you do? "

" My dear Traddles," said I, " I am delighted to see you
at last, and very sorry I have not been at home before.
But I have been so much engaged "

''Yes, yes, I know," said Traddles, "of course. Yours
lives in London, I think."

" What did you say? "

"She — excuse me — Miss D., you know," said Traddles,
colouring in his great delicacy, " lives in London, I believe? '■'

"Oh yes-. Near London."

"Mine, perhaps you recollect," said Traddles, with a
serious look, "lives down in Devonshire — one of ten.
Consequently, I am not so much engaged as you — in that
sense."

"I wonder you can bear," I returned, "to see her so
seldom."

" Hah ! " said Traddles, thoughtfully. " It does seem a
wonder. I suppose it is, Copperfield, because there's no
help for it? "

" I suppose so," I replied with a smile, and not without
a blush. " And because you have so much constancy and
patience, Traddles."

" Dear me ! " said Traddles, considering about it, " do I
strike you in that way, Copperfield? Really I didn't know
that I had. But she is such an extraordinarily dear girl
herself, that it's possible she may have imparted something
of those virtues to me. Now you mention it, Copperfield,
I shouldn't wonder at all. I assure you she is always for-
getting herself, and taking care of the other nine."

" Is she the eldest? " I inquired.

" Oh dear, no," said Traddles. " The eldest is a Beauty."

He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the
simplicity of this reply; and added, with a smile upon his
own ingenuous face :

" Not, of course, but that my Sophy — pretty name, Cop-
perfield, I always think? "

"Very pretty!" said I.

" Not. of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too in my

3F DAVID COPPERFIELD. 493

eyes, and would be one of the dearest girls that ever was,.
in anybody's eyes (I should think). But when I say the

eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is a " he seemed

to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands :
" Splendid, you know," said Traddles, energetically.

"Indeed!" said I .

"Oh, I assure you," said Traddles, " something very un-
common, indeed! Then, you know, being formed for so-
ciety and admiration, and not being able to enjoy much of
it, in consequence of their limited means, she naturally gets
a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts her
in good humour ! "

" Is Sophy the youngest? " I hazarded.

" Oh dear, no ! " said Traddles, stroking his chin. " The
two youngest are only nine and ten. Sophy educates 'em."

"The second daughter, perhaps?" I hazarded.

" No," said Traddles. "Sarah's the second. Sarah has
something the matter with her spine, poor girl. The malady
will wear out by-and-by, the doctors say, but in the mean-
time she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. Sophy nurses
her. Sophy's the fourth."

" Is the mother living? " I inquired.

" Oh yes," said Traddles, " she is alive. She is a very
superior woman, indeed, but the damp country is not
adapted to her constitution, and — in fact, she has lost
the use of her limbs."

" Dear me ! " said I.

"Very sad, is it not?" returned Traddles. "But in a
merely domestic view it is not so bad as it might be, because
Sophy takes her place. She is quite as much a mother to
her mother, as she is to the other nine."

I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this
young lady ; and, honestly with the view of doing my best
to prevent the good-nature of Traddles from being imposed
upon, to the detriment of their joint prospects in life, in-
quired how Mr. Micawber was?

" He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you," said Trad-
dies. " I am not living with him at present."

"No?"

" No You see the truth is," said Traddles, in a whisper,
" he has changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of
his temporary embarrassments; and he don't come out till
after dark — and then in spectacles There was an execu-

494 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

tion put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber was in
such a dreadful state that I really couldn't resist giving my
name to that second bill we spoke of here. You may
imagine how delightful it was to my feelings, Copperheld,
to seethe matter settled with it, and Mrs Micawber recover
her spirits."

"Hum!" said I.

" Not that her happiness was of long duration," pursued
Traddles, " for, unfortunately, within a week another ex
edition came in. It broke up the establishment. I have
been living in a furnished apartment since then, and the
Mortimers have been very private indeed. I hope you won't
think it selfish, Copperheld, if I mention that the broker
carried off my little round table with the marble top, and
Sophy's flower-pot and stand?"

" What a hard thing! " I exclaimed indignantly.

" It was a it was a pull," said Traddles, with his

usual wince at that expression. " I don't mention it re-
proachfully, however, but with a motive. The fact is,
Copperheld, I was unable to repurchase them at the time
of their seizure ; in the first place, because the broker, hav-
ing an idea that I wanted them, ran the price up to an
extravagant extent; and, in the second place, because I —
hadn't any money. Now, I have kept my eye since, upon
the broker's shop," said Traddles, with a great enjoyment
of his mystery, " which is up at the top of Tottenham Court
Eoad, and, at last, to-day I find them put out for sale. I
have only noticed them from over the way, because if the
broker saw me, bless you, he'd ask any price for them!
What has occurred to me, having now the money, is, that
perhaps you wouldn't object to ask that good nurse of yours
tc come with me to the shop — I can show it her from round
the corner of the next street — and make the best bargain
for them, as if they were for herself, that she can! "

The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan
to me, and the sense he had of its uncommon artfulness,
are among the freshest things in my remembrance.

I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist
him, and that we would all three take the field together,
but on one condition. That condition was, that he should
make a solemn resolution to grant no more loans of his
name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber.

u My dear Copperheld " said Traddles, " I have already

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 495

done so, because I begin to feel that I have not only been
inconsiderate, but that I have been positively unjust to
Sophy. My word being passed to myself, there is no longer
any apprehension j but I pledge it to you, too, with the
greatest readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have
paid. I have no doubt Mr. Micawber would have paid it if
he could, but he could not. One thing I ought to mention,
which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, Copperfleld. It
refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. He
don't tell me that it is provided for, but he says it will be.
Now, I think there is something very fair and honest about
that!"

I was unwilling to damp my good friend's confidence,
and therefore assented. After a little further conversation,
we went round to the chandler's shop, to enlist Peggotty;
Traddles declining to pass the evening with me, both be-
cause he endured the liveliest apprehensions that his prop-
erty would be bought by somebody else before he could
repurchase it, and because it was the evening he always
devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the world.

I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the
street in Tottenham Court Road, while Peggotty was bar-
gaining for the precious articles ; or his agitation when she
came Slowly towards us after vainly offering a price, and
was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back again.
The end of the negotiation was that she bought the property
on tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was transported with
pleasure.

" I am very much obliged to you, indeed," said Traddles,
on hearing it was to be sent to where he lived, that night.
u If I might ask one other favour, I Hope you would not
think it absurd, Copperfleld? "

I said beforehand, certainly not.

"Then if you would be good enough," said Traddles to
Peggotty, "to get the flower-pot now, I think I should
like (it being Sophy's, Copperfleld) to carry it home my-
self!"

Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed
her with thanks, and went his way up Tottenham Court
Road, carrying the flower-pot affectionately in his arms,
with one of the most delighted expressions of countenance
I ever saw.

Wp. then turned back towards my chambers As the

496 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

shops had charms for Peggotty which I never knew them
possess in the same degree for anybody else, I sauntered
easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows, and
waiting for her as often as she chose. We were thus a
good while in getting to the Adelphi.

On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden
disappearance of Mrs. Crupp's pitfalls, and also to the prints
of recent footsteps. We were both very much surprised,
coming higher up, to find my outer door standing open
(which I had shut), and to hear voices inside.

We looked at one another, without knowing what to
make of this, and went into the sitting-room. What was
my amazement to find, of all people upon earth, my aunt
there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on a quantity of
luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her
knee, like a female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr.
Dick leaning thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had
often been out together to fly, with more luggage piled
about him !

" My dear aunt ! " cried I. a Why, what an unexpected
pleasure ! "

We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially
shook hands; and Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea,
and could not be too attentive, cordially said she had knowed
well as Mr. Copperfull would have his heart in his mouth,
when he see his dear relations.

" Halloa ! " said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before
her awful presence. " How are you ? "

" You remember my aunt, Peggotty? " said I.

"For the love of goodness, child," exclaimed my aunt,
41 don't call the woman by that South Sea Island name ! If
she married and got rid of it, which was the best thing she
could do, why don't you give her the benefit of the change?
What's your name now, — P.?" said my aunt, as a com-
promise for* the obnoxious appellation,

"" Barkis, ma'am," said Peggotty, with a curtsey-

" Well ! That's human, " said my aunt. " It sounds less
as if you wanted a Missionary. How d'ye do, Barkis? I
hope you're well? "

Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt's
extending her hand, Barkis came forward, and took the
hand, and curtsied her acknowledgments.

" We are older than we were, I s^e." said my aunt. " We

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 407

have only met each other once before, you know A nice
business we made of it then! Trot, my dear another

cup." . .

I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual
inflexible state of figure ; and ventured a remonstrance with
her on the subject of her sitting on a box.

" Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy-chair; aunt,
•said I. " Why should you be so uncomfortable? "

'•'Thank you, Trot," replied my aunt, "I prefer to sit
upon my property. " Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs
Crupp, and observed, " We needn't trouble you to wait
ma'am."

" Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore 1 go,
raa'ani? " said Mrs. Crupp.

u No, I thank you, ma'am," replied my aunt.
u Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma am?
said Mrs. Crupp. "Or would you be persuaded to try a
new-laid hegg? or should I brile a rasher? Ain't there
nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mi. Copperfull? "

" Nothing, ma'am," returned my aunt, " I shall do very
well, I thank you."

Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express
sweet temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side,
to express a general feebleness of constitution, and inces-
santly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of service
to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided
herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room.

"Dick!" said my aunt. "You know what I told you
about time-servers and wealth-worshippers? "

Mr. Dick— with rather a scared look, as if he had tor-
gotten it— returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. _
° "Mrs. Crupp is one of them," said my aunt. Barkis,
I'll trouble you to look after the tea, and let me have an
other cup, for I don't fancy that woman's pouring-out .

I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had
something of importance on her mind, and that there was
far more matter in this arrival than a stranger might have
supposed. I noticed how her eye lighted on me, when she
thought my attention otherwise occupied ; and what a curi-
ous process of hesitation appeared to be going on within
her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and^ com-
posure. I began to reflect whether I had done anything to
offend her ; and my conscience whispered me that I had not
32

498 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

yet told her about Dora. Could it by any means be thatj
I wondered !

As I knew she would only speak in her own good time,
I sat down near her, and spoke to the birds, and played
with the cat, and was as easy as I could be. But I was
very far from being really easy ; and I should still have
been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite be-
hind my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of
shaking his head darkly at me, and pointing at her.

" Trot," said my aunt at last, when she had finisned her
tea, and carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her
lips — "you needn't go, Barkis I — Trot, have you got to be
firm and self-reliant? "

" 1 hope so, aunt. "

" What do you think? " inquired Miss Betsey.

"I think so, aunt."

"Then why, my love," said my aunt, looking earnestly
at me, " why do you think I prefer to sit upon this property
of mine to-night? "

1 shook my head, unable to guess

"Because," said my aunt, "it's all 1 have. Because I'm
ruined, my dear ! "

If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into
the river together, I could hardly have received a greater
shock,

"Dick knows it," said my aunt, laying her hand calmly
on my shoulder. " I am ruined, my dear Trot! All I ha^e
in the world is in this room, except the cottage j and that I
have left 3 anet to let. Barkis, I want to get a bed for this
gentleman to-night. To save expense, perhaps you can
make up something here for myself. Anything will do.
It's only for to-night We'll talk about this, more, to-
morrow,"

1 was roused from my amazement, and concern for her—
I am sure, for her — by her falling on my neck, for a mo-
ment, and crying that she only grieved for me. In anothei
moment, she suppressed this emotion; and said with an
aspect more triumphant than dejected :

" We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to
frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out.
We must live misfortune d™*m. Trot! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 499

CHAPTER XXXV

DEPRESSION

As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, whicJi
quite deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my
aunt's intelligence, I proposed to Mr. Dick to come round
to the chandler's shop, and take possession of the bed which
Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler's shop be-
ing in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a
very different place in those days, there was a low wooden
colonnade before the door (not very unlike that before the
house where the little man and woman used to live, in the
old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The
glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated
him, I dare say, for many inconveniences; but, as there
were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavours I
have already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little
more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his accom-
modation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that
there wasn't room to swing a cat there ; but, as Mr. Dick
justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed,
nursing his leg, "You know, Trotwood, I don't want to
swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what
does that signify to me! "

I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any under
standing cf the causes of this sudden and great change in
my aunt's affairs. As I might have expected, he had none
at all. The only account he could give of it, was, that my
aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, "Now,
Dick, are you really and truly the philosopher I take you
for? " That then he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That
then my aunt had said, "Dick, I am ruined." That then
he had said, " Oh, indeed ! " That then my aunt had praised
him highly, which he was very glad of. And that then
they had come to me, and had had bottled porter and sand-
wiches on the road.

Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of
the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eye3
wide open and a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I

500 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant dis-
tress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly re-
proved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and
tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed
upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have
softened a far harder heart than mine. I took infinitely
greater pains to cheer him up again than I had taken to
depress him ; and I soon understood (as I ought to have
known at first) that he had been so confident, merely be-
cause of his faith in the wisest and most wonderful of
women, and his unbounded reliance on my intellectual re-
sources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for
any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal.

" What can we do, Trotwood? " said Mr. Dick. " There's
the Memorial "

"To be sure there is," said I. "But all we can do just
now, Mr. Dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not
let my aunt see that we are thinking about it."

He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and
implored me, if I should see him wandering an inch out of
the right course, to recall him by some of those superior
methods which were always at my command. But I regret
to state that the fright I had given him proved too much
for his best attempts at concealment. All the evening his
eyes wandered to my aunt's face, with an expression of the
most dismal apprehension, as if he saw her growing thin
on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put a constraint
upon his head ; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting
rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the
matter at all. I saw him look at the loaf at sapper (which
happened to be a small one), as if nothing else stood between
us and famine ; and when my aunt insisted on his making
his customary repast, I detected him in the act of pocketing
fragments of his bread and cheese ; I have no doubt for the
purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should
have reached an advanced stage of attenuation.

My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of
mind, which was a lesson to all of us — to me, I am sure.
She was extremely gracious to Peggotty, except when I
inadvertently called her by that name ; and, strange as I
knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She
was to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room,
to keep guard over her. She made a great point of being

OF DAVID COPPERFEELD. 501

so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and I suppose
really did find some satisfaction in that circumstance.

"Trot, my dear," said my aunt, when she saw me making
preparations for compounding her usual night-draught,

"No:"

" Nothing, aunt? "

" Not wine, my dear. Ale."

« But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it
made of wine " . u w

"Keep that, in case of sickness," said my aunt We
mustn't use it carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a

^'thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible My
aunt being resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As
it was growing late, Peggotty and Mr Dick took that op-
portunity of repairing to the chandler's shop together. I
parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street,
with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human

misery. , , T

My aunt was walking up and down the room when 1
returned, crimping the borders of her nightcap with her
finder* I warmed the ale and made the toast on the usual
infallible principles. When it was ready for her she was
ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her
gown turned back on her knees

"My dear," said my aunt, after taking a spoonful ot it;
" it's a great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.

I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added:

" Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to
us, we are well off." .

"I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure, said 1.

" Well, then, why don't you think so? " said my aunt

« Because you and I are very different people," I returned.

" Stuff and nonsense, Trot! " replied my aunt

My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which tnere
was "very little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale
with a teasooon, and soaking her strips of toast in it.

"Trot," said she, "I don't care for strange faces in gen-
eral, but I rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know ^

" It's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so .

said 1

"It's a most extraordinary world," observed my aunt,
rubbing her nose; "how that woman ever got into it with

502 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

that name, is unaccountable to me. It would be much
more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that sort,
one would think."

"Perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault," said I.

" I suppose not," returned my aunt, rather grudging the
admission; "but it's very aggravating. However, she's
Barkis now. That's some comfort. Barkis is uncommonly
fond of you, Trot."

"There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,';
said I

"Nothing, I believe," returned my aunt. "Here, the
poor fool has been begging and praying about handing over
some of her money — because she has got too much of it!
A simpleton ! "

My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling
down into the warm ale.

" She's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,"
said my aunt. " I knew, from the first moment when I saw
her with that poor dear blessed baby of a mother of yours,
that she was the most ridiculous of mortals. But there are
good points in Barkis ! "

Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her
hand to her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she re-
sumed her toast and her discourse together.

" Ah ! Mercy upon us ! " sighed my aunt. " I know all
about it, Trot ! Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while
you were out with Dick. I know all about it. I don't
know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for my
part. I wonder they don't knock out their brains against
— against mantelpieces," said my aunt; an idea which
was probably suggested to her by her contemplation of
mine.

"Poor Emily!" said I.

"Oh, don't talk tome about poor," returned my aunt
" She should have thought of that, before she caused sc
much misery ! Give me a kiss, Trot. I am sorry for youi
early experience."

As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to
detain me, and said:

"Oh, Trot, Trot ! And so you fancy yourself in love J
Do you? "

" Fancy, aunt ! " I exclaimed, as red as I could be. u
adore her with my whole soul ! "

OP DAVID LOI^ERFIELD. 503

"Dora, indeed!" returned my aunt. "And you mean
to say the little thing is very fascinating, I suppose? "

"^Sly dear aunt," I replied, "no one can form the least
idea of what she is ! "

" Ah ! And not silly? " said my aunt.

"Silly, aunt!"

I seriously believe it had never once entered my head
for a single moment, to consider what she was or not. I
resented the idea, of course ; but I was in a manner struck
by it, as a new one altogether.

"Not light-headed? " said my aunt.

" Light-headed, aunt ! " I could only repeat this daring
speculation with the same kind of feeling with which I had
repeated the preceding question.

"Well, well!" said my aunt. "I only ask. I don't
depreciate her. Poor little couple ! And so you think you
were formed for one another, and are to go through a party-
supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces of confec-
tionery, do you, Trot? "

She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air,
half playful and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched.

"We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know," I re-
plied ; " and I dare say we say and think a good deal that
is rather foolish. But we love one another truly, I am sure.
If I thought Dora could ever love anybody else, or cease to
love me ; or that I could ever love anybody else, or cease
to love her; I don't know what I should do — go out of my
mind, I think ! "

" Ah, Trot ! " said my aunt, shaking her head, and smil-
ing gravely ; " blind, blind, blind ! "

"Some one that I know, Trot," my aunt pursued, after
a pause, " though of a very pliant disposition, has an ear-
nestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor Baby.
Earnestness is what that Somebody must look for, to sus-
tain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faith-
ful earnestness."

" If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt ! " I
cried.

" Oh, Trot ! " she said again ; " blind, blind ! " and with-
out knowing why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of
something overshadow me like a cloud.

"However," said my aunt, "I don't want to put two
young creatures out of co^eit with themselves, or to make

504 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

them unhappy ; so, though it is a girl and boy attachment,
and girl and boy attachments very often — mind! I don't
say always! — come to nothing, still we'll be serious about
it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days.
There's time enough for it to come to anything! "

This was not upon the whole very comforting to a raptur-
ous lover ; but I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence,
and I was mindful of her being fatigued. So I thanked
her ardently for this mark of her affection, and for all her
other kindnesses towards me ; and after a tender good night,
she took her nightcap into my bedroom.

How miserable I was, when I lay down ! How I thought
and thought about my being poor, in Mr. Spenlow's eyes;
about my not being what I thought I was, when I proposed
to Dora ; about the chivalrous necessity of telling Dora what
my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her en-
gagement if she thought fit ; about how I should contrive
to live, during the long term of my articles, when I was
earning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt,
and seeing no way of doing anything ; about coming down
to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby coat,
and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride
no gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light !
Sordid and selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself
by knowing that it was, to let my mind run on my own
distress so much, I was so devoted to Dora that I could not
help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think more
of my aunt, and less of myself ; but, so far, selfishness was
inseparable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one
side for any mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable
I was, that night !

As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes,
but I seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of
going to sleep. Xow I was ragged, wanting to sell Dora
matches, six bundles for a halfpenny; now I was at the
office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by Mr.
Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire ;
now I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from
old Tiffey's daily biscuit, regularly eaten when St. Paul's
struck one ; now I was hopelessly endeavouring to get a
licence to marry Dora, having nothing but one of Uriah
Heep's gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole Com-
mons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.

505

room, I was always tossing about like a distressed ship in
a sea of bedclothes.

My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her
walking to and fro. Two or three times in the course of
the night, attired in a long flannel wrapper in which she
looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a disturbed ghost,
in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which 1
lay On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn
that she inferred from a particular light in the sky, that
Westminster Abbey was on fire; and to be consulted in
reference to the probability of its igniting Buckingham
Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after tna„,
I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herseli
" Poor boy!" And then it made me twenty times more
wretched, to know how unselfishly mindful she was of me,
and how selfishly mindful I was of myself.

It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me,
could be short to anybody else. This consideration set me
thinking and thinking of an imaginary party where people
were dancing the hours away, until that became a dream
too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune,
and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking
the least notice of me. The man who had been playing the
harp all night, was trying in vain to cover it with an orai-
nary-sized nightcap, when I awoke ; or I should rather say,
when I left off trying to go to sleep, and saw the sun shin-
ing in through the window at last.

There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom
of one of the streets out of the Strand-it may be there stixl
-in which I have had many a cold plunge. Dressing my-
self as quietly as I could, and leaving Peggotty to look
after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and then
went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this
brisk treatment might freshen my wits a little ; and I think
it did them good, for I soon came to the conclusion that the
first step I ought to take was to try if my articles could be
cancelled and the premium recovered. I got some break-
fast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors' Commons
alono- the watered roads and through a pleasant smell oi
summer flowers, growing in gardens and carried into town
on hucksters' heads, intent on this first effort to meet our
altered circumstances. , ' .„

J arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half

.106 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

an hour's loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey,
who was always first, appeared with his key. Then I sat
down in my shady corner, looking up at the sunlight on the
opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora; until Mr.
Spenlow came in, crisp and curly.

" How are you, Copperfield? " said he. " Fine morning ! "

"Beautiful morning, Sir," said I. "Could I say a word
to you before you go into Court? w

" By all means," said he. " Come into my room."

I followed him into his room, and he began putting on
his gown, and touching himself up before a little glass he
Lad, hanging inside a closet door.

"I am sorry to say," said I, "that I have some rather
disheartening intelligence from my aunt."

" No ! " said he. " Dear me ! Not paralysis, I hope? "

" It has no reference to her health, Sir," I replied. " She
has met with some large losses. In fact, she has very
little left, indeed."

"You as-tound me, Copperfield! " cried Mr. Spenlow.

I shook my head. "Indeed, Sir," said I, "her affairs
are so changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would
be possible — at a sacrifice on our part of some portion of
the premium, of course," I put in this, on the spur of the
moment, warned by the blank expression of his face — " to
cancel my articles? "

What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows,
It was like asking, as a favour, to be sentenced to trans-
portation from Dora.

"To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?"

I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not
know where my means of subsistence were to come from,
unless I could earn them for myself. I had no fear for the
future, I said — and I laid great emphasis on that, as if to
imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-
law one of these days — but, for the present, I was thrown
upon my own resources.

"I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield," said
Mr. Spenlow. " Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel
articles for any such reason. It is not a professional course
of proceeding. It is not a convenient precedent at all.
Far from it. At the same time "

" You are very good, Sir," I murmured, anticipating a
concession.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 507

''Not at all. Don't mention it," said Mr. Spenlow.
" At the same tini3, I was going to say, if it had been my
lot to have my hands unfettered — if I had not a partner —
Mr. Jorkins "

My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another
effort.

" Do you think, Sir," said I, " if I were to mention it tc
Mr. Jorkins "

Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ''Heaven
forbid, Copperfield," he replied, "that I should do any
man an injustice ; still less, Mr. Jorkins. But I know my
partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man to respond
to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is
very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know
what he is ! "

I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had
originally been alone in the business, and now lived by
himself in a house near Montagu Square, which was fear-
fully in want of painting ; that he came very late of a day,
and went away very early ; that he never appeared to be
con suited, about anything; and that he had a dingy little
black-hole of his own up-stairs, where no business was
ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-
paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to
be twenty years of age.

"Would you object to my mentioning it to him, Sir? " I
asked.

" By no means," said Mr. Spenlow. " But I have some
experience of Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were
otherwise, for I should be happy to meet your views in
any respect. I cannot have the least objection to youi
mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it
worth while."

Availing myself of this permission, which was given with
a warm shake of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and
looking at the sunlight stealing from the chimney-pots
down the wall of the opposite house until Mr. Jorkins
came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins5 s room, and evidently
astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appear-
ance there.

" Come in, Mr. Copperfield, n said Mr. Jorkins. " Come
in!"

I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr

508 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Jorkins pretty much as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow.
Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the awful creature one
might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced man
of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition
in the Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant,
having little room in his system for any other article of diet.

" You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose? "
said Mr. Jorkins ; when he had heard me, very restlessly,
to an end.

I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had
introduced his name.

" He said I should object? " asked Mr. Jorkins.

I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered
it probable.

" I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can't advance
your object," said Mr. Jorkins, nervously. "The fact is —
but I have an appointment at the Bank, if you'll have the
goodness to excuse me."

With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of
the room, when I made bold to say that I. feared, then,
there was no way of arranging the matter?

" No! " said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake
tiis bead. "Oh, no! I object, you know," which he said
very rapidly, and went out. "You must be aware, Mr.
Copperfield," he added, looking restlessly in at the door
again, "if Mr. Spenlow objects "

"Personally, he does not object, Sir," said I.

"Oh! Personally!" repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impa-
tient manner. " I assure you there's an objection, Mr. Cop-
periield. Hopeless! What you wish to be done, can't be
done. I — I really have got an appointment at the Bank."
With that he fairly ran away ; and to the best of my knowl-
edge, it was three days before he showed himself in the
Commons again.

Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited
until Mr. Spenlow came in, and then described what had
passed ; giving him to understand that I was not hopeless
of his being able to soften the adamantine' Jorkins, if he
would undertake that task.

"Copperfield," returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious
smile, "you have not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as
long as I have Nothing is farther from my thought.
*ihan to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. Jorkins

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 509

But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections
which often deceives people. No, Copperfield ! " shak-
ing his head. " Mr. Jorkins is not to be moved, believe
me!"

I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and
Mr. Jorkins, as to which of them really was the objecting
partner; but I saw with sufficient clearness that there was
obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that the recovery of
my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the question. In a
state of despondency, which I remember with anything but
satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to
myself (though always in connexion with Dora), I left the
office, and went homeward.

I was trying to familiarise my mind with the worst, and
to present to myself the arrangements we should have to
make for the future in their sternest aspect, when a hackney-
chario't coming after me, and stopping at my very feet, oc-
casioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth
to me from the window ; and the face I had never seen
without a feeling of serenity and happiness, from the mo-
ment when it first turned back on the old oak staircase with
the great broad balustrade, and when I associated its soft-
ened beauty with the stained-glass window in the church,
was smiling on me.

" Agnes ! " I joyfully exclaimed. " Oh, my dear Agnes,
of all people in the world, what a pleasure to see you ! "

"Is it, indeed? " she said, in her cordial voice.

" I want to talk to you so much! " said I. " It's such a
lightening of my heart, only to look at you ! If I had had
a conjuror's cap, there is no one I should have wished for
but you ! "

" What? " returned Agnes.

"Well! perhaps Dora first," I admitted, with a blush.

"Certainly, Dora first, I hope," said Agnes, laughing.

fr But you next ! " said I. " Where are you going ? "

She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day
being very fine, she was glad to come out of the chariot,
which smelt (I had my head in it all this time) like a stable
put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the coachman,
and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She
was like Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in
one short minute, having Agnes at my side !

My aunt had written her one rtf the odd, abrupt notes—

510 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

very little longer than a bank-note — to which her epistolary
efforts were usually limited. She had stated therein that
she had fallen into adversity, and was leaving Dover for
good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was so
well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes
had come to London to see my aunt, between whom and
herself there had been a mutual liking these many years :
indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up my residence
in Mr. Wickfield's house. She was not alone, she said.
Her papa was with her — and Uriah Heep.

" And now they are partners," said I. " Confound him ! "

"Yes," said Agnes, "They have some business here ;
and I took advantage of their coming, to come too. You
must not think my visit all friendly and disinterested,
Trotwood, for — I am afraid I may be cruelly prejudiced — I
do not like to let papa go away alone, with him."

" Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield
still, Agnes? "

Agnes shook her head. " There is such a change at home/'
said she, " that you would scarcely know the dear old house.
They live with us now."

"They?" said I.

" Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,"
said Agnes, looking up into my face.

" I wish I had the ordering of his dreams," said I. " He
wouldn't sleep there long."

" I keep my own little room, " said Agnes, " where I used
to learn my lessons. How the time goes ! You remember?
The little panelled room that opens from the drawing-
room? "

"Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first
time, coming out at the door, with your quaint little basket
of keys hanging at your side? "

" It is just the same," said Agnes, smiling. " I am glad
von think of it so pleasantly. We were very happy. '*'

• We were indeed," said I.

•I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always
desert Mrs. Il^ep, you know. And so," said Agnes quietly,
"I feel obliged to bear her company, when I might piefbi
to be alone. But I have no other reason to complain of
her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son,
it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to
her"

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 51^

i looked at Agnes when she said these words, without
detecting in her any consciousness of Uriah's design Her
mild but earnest eyes met mine with their own beaim
ful frankness, and there was no change in her gen Lie
face

" The chief evil of their presence in the house," said
Agnes, " is that I cannot be as near papa as I could wish —
Uriah Heep being so much between us— and cannot watch
Over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say, as closely as
I would. But, if any fraud or treachery is practising against
him, I hope that simple love and truth will be stronger, in
the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in
the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."

A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other
face, died away, even while I thought how good it was, and
how familiar it had once been to me ; and she asked me,
with a quick change of expression (Ave were drawing very
near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt's
circumstances had been brought about. On my replying
no, she had not told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and
I fancied I felt her arm tremble in mine.

We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement.
A difference of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs.
Crupp, on an abstract question (the propriety of chambers
being inhabited by the gentler sex) ; and my aunt, utterly
indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp, had cut the
dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of my
brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both
of these expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and
had expressed her intention of bringing before a " British-
Judy " — meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our
national liberties.

My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peg-
gotty was out showing Mr, Dick the soldiers at the Horse
Guards — and being, besides, greatly pleased to see Agnes
— rather plumed herself on the affair than otherwise, and
received us with unimpaired good-humour. When Agnes
laid her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I
could not but think, looking on her mild eyes and her radi-
ant forehead, how natural it seemed to have her there, how
trustfully, although she was so young and inexperienced,
my aunt confided in her ; how strong she was, indeed, in
simple love and truth

512 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

We began to talk about my aunt's losses, and I told them
what I had tried to do that morning.

" Which was injudicious, Trot," said my aunt, ''but well
meant. You are a generous boy — I suppose I must say,
young man, now— and I am proud of you, my dear. So far,
so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the case of
Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands."

I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively
at my aunt. My aunt, patting her cat, looked very atten-
tively at Agnes.

"Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, who had always kept
her money matters to herself: " — I don't mean your
sister, Trot, my dear, but myself — had a certain property.
It don't matter how much; enough to live on. More; for
she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her
property for some time, and then, by the advice of her man
of business, laid it out on landed security. That did very
well, and returned very good interest, till Betsey was paid
off. I am talking of Betsey as if she was a man-of war.
Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new in-
vestment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man
of business, who was not such a good man of business by
this time, as he used to be— I am alluding to your father,
Agnes — and she took it into her head to lay it out for her-
self. So she took her pigs," said my aunt, "to a foreign
market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First,
she lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving
way — fishing up treasure, or some such Tom Tidier non-
sense," explained my aunt, rubbing her nose ; " and then
she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all, to set the
thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I
don't know what the bank shares were worth for a little
while," said my aunt; "cent per cent was the lowest of it,
I believe; but the bank was at the other end of the world,
and tumbled into space, for what I know ; anyhow, it fell
to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence ± and
Betsey's sixpences were all there, and there's an end of
them. Least said, soonest mended ! "

My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing
her eyes with a kind of triumph on Agnes> whose colour
was gradually returning.

"Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?" said
Agnes

OF DAVID COPPERFEBLD. 513

"I hope it's enough, child," said my aunt. "If there
had been more money to ]ose, it wouldn't have been all, I
dare say. Betsey would have contrived to throw that after
the restj and make another chapter, I have little doubt.
But, there was no more money, and there's no more
story."

Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her
colour still came and went, but she breathed more freely.
I thought I knew why. I thought she had had some fear
that her unhappy father might be in some way to blame for
vVhat had happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and
.laughed.

"Is that all?" repeated my aunt. "Why, yes, that's
ill, except, ' And she lived happy ever afterwards.' Per-
haps I may add that of Betsey yet, one of these days.
Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in
some things, though I can't compliment you always; " and
here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar
to herself. " What's to be done? Here's the cottage, tak-
ing one time with another, will produce, say seventy pounds
a year. I think we may safely put it down at that. Well !
— That's all we've got," said my aunt; with w-hom it was
an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short
when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a
long while.

" Then," said my aunt, after a rest, " there's Dick. He's
good for a hundred a year, but of course that must be ex-
pended on himself. I would sooner send him away, though
I know I am the only person who appreciates him, than
have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can
Trot and I do best, upon our means? What do you say,
Agnes? "

" / say, aunt," I interposed, " that I must do something ! "

"Go for a soldier, do you mean?" returned my aunt,
farmed; "or go to sea? I won't hear of it You are to
oe a proctor. We're not going to have any knockings on
the head in this family, if you please, Sir."

T vas about to explain that I was not desirous of intro-
ducing that mode of provision into the family, when Agnes
inquired if my rooms were held for any long term?

" You come to the point, my dear," said my aunt. " They
are not to be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they
could be underlet, and that I don't believe. The last mav
33

514 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

died here. Five people out of six would die— of course—
of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I
have a little ready money ; and I agree with you, the best
thing we can do, is, to live the term out here, and get Dick
a bedroom hard by."

I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt
would sustain, from living in a continual state of guerilla
warfare with Mrs. Crupp ; but she disposed of that objec-
tion summarily by declaring, that, on the first demonstra-
tion of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs. Crupp
for the whole remainder of her natural life.

"I have been thinking, Trotwood," said Agnes, dim
dently, " that if you had time "

" I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always dis-
engaged after four or five o'clock, and I have time early in
the morning. In one way and another," said I, conscious
of reddening a little as I thought of the hours and hours I
had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon the
Norwood Road, "I have abundance of time."

"I knew you would not mind," said Agnes, coming to
me, and speaking in a low voice, so full of sweet and hope-
ful consideration that I hear it now, "the duties of a secre-
tary."

"Mind, my dear Agnes? "

"Because," continued Agnes, "Doctor Strong has acted
on his intention of retiring, and has come to live in London ;
and he asked papa, I know, if he could recommend him one.
Don't you think he would rather have his favourite old
pupil near him, than anybody else? "

u Dear Agnes ! " said I. " What should I do without you !
You are always my good angel. I told you so. I never
think of you in any other light."

Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good
angel (meaning Dora) was enough ; and went on to remind
me that the Doctor had been used to occupy himself in his
study, early in the morning, and in the evening — and that
probably my leisure would suit his requirements very well.
I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning
my own bread, than with the hope of earning it under my
old master ; in short, acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat
down and wrote a letter to the Doctor, stating my object,
and appointing to call on him next day at ten in the fore-
noon. This I addressed to Highgate — for in that place, so

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 515

memorable to me, lie lived — and went out and posted, my-
self, without losing a minute.

Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noise •
less presence seemed inseparable from the place. When I
came back, I found my aunt's birds hanging, just as they
had hung so long in the parlour window of the cottage ; and
my easy-chair imitating my aunt's much easier chair in its
position at the open window ; and even the round green fan,
which my aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to
the window-sill. I knew who had done all this, by its
seeming to have quietly done itself; and I should have
known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books
in the old order of my school days, even if I had supposed
Agnes to be miles away, instead of seeing her busy with
them, and smiling at the disorder into which they had fallen.
My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames
(it really did look very well with the sun upon it, though
not like the sea before the cottage), but she could not relent
towards the London smoke, which, she said, "peppered
everything." A complete revolution, in which Peggotty
bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner
of my rooms, in regard of this pepper ; and I was looking
on, thinking how little even Peggotty seemed to do with a
good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did without any
bustle at all, when a knock came at the door.

"I think," said Agnes, turning pale, "it's papa. He
promised me that he would come."

I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield,
but Uriah Heep. I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some
time. I was prepared for a great change in him, after what
I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance shocked me.
It was not that he looked many years older, though still
dressed, with the old scrupulous cleanliness ; or that there
was an unwholesome ruddiness upon his face ; or that his
eyes were full and bloodshot ; or that there was a nervous
trembling in his hand, the cause of which I knew, and had
for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost
his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman — for that
he had not— but the thing that struck me most was, that
with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him,
he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation
of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures,
ui their relative positions, Uriah's of power, and Mr. Wick

516 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

field's of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than
I can express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a
Man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading
spectacle.

He appeared to be only too conscious of himself. When
he came in, he stood still ; and with his head bowed, as if
he felt it. This was only for a moment ; for Agnes softly
said to him, "Papa! Here is Miss Trotwood — and Trot-
wood, whom you have not seen for a long while ! " and then
he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand,
and shook hands more cordially with me. In the moment's
pause I speak of, I saw Uriah's countenance form itself into
a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes saw it too, I think, for
she shrank from him.

What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of
physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent.
I believe there never was anybody with such an imperturb-
able countenance when she chose. Her face might have
been a dead wall on the occasion in question, for any light
it threw upon her thoughts ; until she broke silence with
her usual abruptness.

" Well, Wickfield ! " said my aunt ; and he looked up at
her for the first time. "I have been telling your daughter
how well I have been disposing of my money for myself,
because I couldn't trust it to you, as you were growing rusty
in business matters. We have been taking counsel together,
and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is
worth the whole firm, in my opinion."

"If I may umbly make the remark," said Uriah Heep,
with a writhe, " I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood,
and should be only too appy if Miss Agnes was a partner."

"You're a partner yourself, you know," returned my
aunt, "and that's about enough for you, I expect. How
io you find yourself, Sir? "

In acknowledgment of this question, addressed to hin?
with extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably
clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was
pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the
same.

" And you, Master — I should say, Mister Copperfield,"
pursued Uriah. "I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to
see you, Mister Copperfield, even under present circum-
stances." I believed that: for he seemed to relish thea

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 517

very much. "Present circumstances is not what your
friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn't
money makes the man: it's — I am really unequal with my
nmble powers to express what it is," said Uriah, with a
fawning jerk, "but it isn't money! "

Here he shook hands with me : not in the common way,
but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my
hand up and down like a pump-handle, that he was a little
afraid of.

" And how do you think we are looking, Master Copper
field, — I should say, Mister? " fawned Uriah. " Don't you
find Mr. "Wickfield blooming, Sir? Years don't tell much
in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising up the
umble, namely, mother and self — and in developing," he
added, as an afterthought, ';the beautiful, namely, Miss
Agnes."

He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such
an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking
straight at him, lost all patience.

"Deuce take the man! " said my aunt, sternly, "what's
he about? Don't be galvanic, Sir! "

" I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood," returned Uriah ;
"I'm aware you're nervous."

" Go along with you, Sir ! " said my aunt, anything but
appeased. " Don't presume to say so ! I am nothing of
the sort. If you're an eel, Sir, conduct yourself like one.
If you're a man, control your limbs, Sir! Good God!"
said my aunt, with great indignation, " I am not going to
be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses ! "

Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have
been, by this explosion ; which derived great additional force
from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards
moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were mak -
ing snaps or bounces at him. But, he said to me aside in a
meek voice :

"I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trot-
wood, though an excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed
I think I had the pleasure of knowing her, when I was a
numble clerk, before you did, Master Copperfield), and it's
only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by
present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn't much
worse I I only called to say that if there was anything we
could do, in present circumstances mother or self, or Wick-

518 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

field and Heep, we should be really glad. I may go so far? r
said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner,

"Uriah Heep," said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous
forced way, " is active in the business, Trotwood. What
he says, I quite concur in. You know I had an old interest
in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite concur
in!"

"Oh, what a rewarc it is," said Uriah, drawing up one
leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visi-
tation from my aunt, "to be so trusted in! But I hope I
am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of
business, Master Copperfield ! "

"Uriah Heep is a great relief tome," said Mr. Wickfield,
in the same dull voice. "It's a load off my mind, Trot-
wood, to have such a partner."

The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit
him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when
he poisoned my rest. I saw the same ill-favoured smile
upon his face again, and saw how he watched me.

" You are not going, papa? " said Agnes, anxiously.
"Will you not walk back with Trotwood and me? "

He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before reply-
ing, if that worthy had not anticipated him.

" I am bespoke myself," said Uriah, " on business ; other-
wise I should have beenappy to have kept with my friends.
But I leave my partner to represent the firm. Miss Agnes,
ever yours ! I wish you good-day, Master Copperfield, and
leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood."

With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and
leering at us like a mask.

We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury
days, an hour or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon
became more like his former self ; though there was a settled
depression upon him, which he never shook off. For all
that, he brightened ; and had an evident pleasure in hearing
as recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which
he remembered very well. He said it was like those times,
to be alone with Agnes and me again ; and he wished to
Heaven they had never changed. I am sure there was an
influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very touch
of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him.

My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peg
gotty, in th« inner room) would not accompany us to the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 5i*

place where they were staying, but insisted on my going *,
and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes sat
beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took
what she gave him, and no more— like a child— and we all
three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in.
When it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, Agnes
pillowing his head and bending over him a little while ; and
when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but
I could see tears glittering in her eyes.

I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl id
her love and truth, at that time of my life ; for if I should,
I must be drawing near the end, and then I would desire to
remember her best! She filled my heart with such good
resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example,
so directed— I know not how, she was too modest and gentle
to advise me in many words— the wandering ardour and un-
settled purpose within me, that all the little good I have
done, and all the harm I have forborne, I solemnly believe
I may refer to her.

And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window
in the dark; listened to my praises of her; praised agam;
and round the little fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her
own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more
innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I
had known then, what I knew long afterwards I—

There was a beggar in the street, when I went down ; and
as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her
calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if
he were an echo of the morning :
-Blind? Blind* Blind ! "

ifiNTHUblAttlH

I BWiAja the next lay with another dive into the Roman
oath, and then started for Highgate. I was not dispirited
now I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had. no
yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner of think-
ing of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to

520 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

do, was, to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had
not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful object.
What I had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline o:
my younger days to account, by going to work with a reso-
lute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my
woodman's axe in my hand, and clear my own way through
the forest of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I
came to Dora. And I went on at a mighty rate, as if it
could be done by walking.

When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road,
pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleas
are, with which it was associated, it seemed as if a complete
3hange had come on my whole life. But that did not dis-
courage me. With the new life, came new purpose, new
intention. Great was the labour; priceless the reward,
Dora was the reward, and Dora must be won.

I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat
was not a little shaboy already. I wanted to be cutting at
those trees in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances
that should prove my strength. I had a good mind to ask
an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones
upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and
let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimu-
lated myself into such a heat, and got so out of breath, that
I felt as if I had been earning I don't know how much. In
this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and
examined it narrowly, — for I felt it necessary to be practical.

It would do for me and Dora admirably : with a little
front garden for Jip to run about in, and bark at the trades-
people through the railings, and a capital room up-stairs
for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and faster than ever,
and dashed up to Highgate, at such a rate that I was there
an hour too early; and, though I had not been, should
have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself, before I
was at all presentable.

My first care, after putting myself under this necessary
course of preparation, was to find the Doctor's house. It
was not in that part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth
lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town.
When I had made this discovery, I went back, in an attrac-
tion I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth' s, and
looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was
shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open,

OF DAVID COr'r'ERFIELD. 521

and Rosa Dartle was walking, bareheaded, with a quick,
impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of
the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that
was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon 9
beaten track, and wearing its heart out.

I came softly away from my place of observation, and
avoiding that part of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had
not gone near it, strolled about until it was ten o' clock.
The church with the slender spire, that stands on the top
of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time.
An old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place ;
and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at,
as I recollect it.

When I approached the Doctor's cottage — a pretty old
place, on which he seemed to have expended some money,
if I might judge from the embellishments and repairs that
had the look of being just completed — I saw him walking
in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had never
left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had
his old companions about him, too ; for there were plenty
of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks
were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been
written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, and were
observing him closely in consequence.

Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his atten-
tion from that distance, I made bold to open the gate, and
walk after him, so as to meet him when he should turn
round. When he did, and came towards me, he looked at
me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without
thinking about me at all; and then his benevolent face
expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by both
hands.

"Why, my dear Copperfield," said the Doctor; "you are
a man ! How do you do? I am delighted to see you My
dear Copperfield, how very much you have improved ! You
are quite — yes — dear me ! "

I hoped he was well, and Mrs.- Strong too.

"Oh dear, yes!'* said the Doctor; "Annie's quite well,
and she'll be delighted to see you. You were always her
favourite. Fhe said so, last night, when I showed her your
letter. And — yes, to be sure — you recollect Mr. Jack
Ma.don, Copperfield?"

"Perfectly, Sir"

522 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Of course," said the Doctor. " To be sure. He9s pretty
well, too."

" Has lie come home, Sir? " I inquired.

" From India? " said the Doctor. " Yes. Mr. Jack
Maldon couldn't bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markle-
ham — you have not forgotten Mrs. Markleham? "

Forgotten the Old Soldier ! And in that short time !

"Mrs. Markleham," said the Doctor, "was quite vexed
about him, poor thing; so we have got him at home again;
and we have bought him a little Patent place, which agrees
with him much better."

I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this
account that it was a place where there was not much to do,
and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking up
and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face
turned encouragingly to mine, went on :

" Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal
of yours. It's very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am
sure; but don't you think you could do better? You
achieved distinction, you know, when you were with us
You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a
foundation that any edifice may be raised upon ; and is it
not a pity that you should devote the spring-time of your
life to such a poor pursuit as I can offer? "

I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself
in a rhapsodical style, I am afraid, urged my request
strongly ; reminding the Doctor that I had already a pro-
fession.

"Well, well," returned the Doctor, "that's true. Cer-
tainly, your having a profession, and being actually engaged
in studying it, makes a difference. But, my good young
friend, what's seventy pounds a year? "

" It doubles our income, Doctor Strong," said I.

"Dear me!" replied the Doctor. "To think ot that!
Not that I mean to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds
a year, because I have always contemplated making any
young friend I might thus employ, a present too. Un-
doubtedly," said the Doctor, still walking me up and down
with his hand on my shoulder. " I have always taken an
annual present into account."

"My dear tutor," said I (now, really, without any non-
sense), "to whom I owe more obligations already than i
can ever acknowledge *

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 523

"No, no," interposed the Doctor. "Pardon me! "

'•If you will take such time as I have, and that is my
mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy
pounds a year, you will do me such a service as \ cannot
express."

" Dear me ! " said the Doctor, innocently. " To think
that so little should go for so much! Dear, dear! And
when you can do better, you will? On your word, now? "
said the Doctor, — which he had always made a very grave
appeal to the honour of us boys.

"On my word, Sir!" I returned, answering in our old
school manner.

'"Then be it so!" said the Doctor, clapping me on the
shoulder, and still keeping his hand there, as we still
walked up and down.

" And I shall be twenty times happier, Sir," said I, with
a little — I hope innocent — flattery, " if my employment is
to be on the Dictionary."

The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder
again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to
behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of
mortal sagacity, "My dear young friend, you have hit it.
It is the Dictionary ! "

How could it be anything else? His pockets were as
full of it as his head. It was sticking out of him in all
directions. He told me that since his retirement from
scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully ;
and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed
arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his
custom to walk about in the day-time with his considering
cap on. His papers were in a little confusion, in conse-
quence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his
occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accus-
tomed to that occupation ; but we should soon put right
what was amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, whea
we were fairly at our work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon's
efforts more troublesome to me than I had expected, as he
had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, but
had sketched so many soldiers, and ladiesv heads, over the
Doctor's manuscript, that I often became involved in
labyrinths of obscurity.

The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going
to work together on that wonderful performance, and we

>>**■

524 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

settled to begin next morning at seven o'clock. We were
to work two hours every morning, and two or three hours
every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to rest. On
Sundays, of course, I was to rest also, and I considered
these very easy terms.

Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction,
the Doctor took me into the house to present me to Mrs.
Strong, whom we found in the Doctor's new study, dusting
his books, — a freedom which he never permitted anybody
else to take with those sacred favourites.

They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and
we sat down to table together. We had not been seated
long, when I saw an approaching arrival in Mrs. Strong's
face, before I heard any sound of it. A gentleman on
horseback came to the gate, and leading his horse into the
little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he were
quite at home, tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house
wall, and came into the breakfast parlour, whip in hand.
It was Mr. Jack Maldon ; and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at
all improved by India, I thought. I was in a state of
ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not
cutting down the trees in the forest of difficulty; and my
impression must be received with due allowance.

- Mr. Jack! " said the Doctor, " Copperfield! "

Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very
warmly, I believed; and with an air of languid patron-
age, at Tvhich I secretly took great umbrage. But his
languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except
when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie.

" Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack? " said
the Doctor.

"I hardly ever take breakfast, Sir," he replied, with
his head thrown back in an easy-chair. " I find it bores
me,"

" Is there any news to-day? " inquired the Doctor.

"Nothing at all, Sir," replied Mr. Maldon. "There's
an account about the people being hungry and discontented
down in the North, but they are always being hungry and
discontented somewhere."

The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished
to change the subject, "Then there's no news at all; and
no news, they say, is good news "

"There's a long statement in the papers, Sir, about a

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 525

murder," observed Mr. Maldon. "But somebody's always
being murdered, and I didn't read it."

A display of indifference to all the actions and passions
of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished
quality at that time, I think, as I have observed it to be
considered since. I have known it very fashionable indeed.
I have seen it displayed with such success, that I have en-
countered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well
have been born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the
more then, because it was new to me, but it certainly did
not tend to exalt my opinion of, or to strengthen my con-
fidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon. #

" I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go
to the opera to-night," said Mr. Maldon, turnmg to her
"It's the last good night there will be, this season; and
there's a singer there, whom she really ought to hear, hhe
is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so charm-
ingly ugly," relapsing into languor.

The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please
his young wife, turned to her and said :

"You must go, Annie. You must go."

"I would rather not," she said to the Doctor. I pre-
fer to remain at home. I would much rather remain at

home." , t t

Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me,
and asked me about Agnes, and whether she should see her,
and whether she was not likely to come that day ; and was
so much disturbed, that I wondered how even the Doctor,
buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious

But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that
she was young and ought to be amused and entertained,
and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old
fellow. However, he said, he wanted to ksar her sing all
the new singer's songs to him; and how could she do that
well, unless she went? So xne Doctor persisted in making
the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come
back to dinner. This concluded, he went to his Patent
place, I suppose; but at all events went away on his horse,
looking very idle. . , , ,

I was curious to find out next morning, whether she haa
been. She had not, but had sent into London to put her
cousin off; and had gone out in the afternoon to see Agnes,
and had prevailed upon the Doctor to go with her; and

526 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

they had walked home by the fields, the Doctor told rae,
the evening being delightful. I wondered then, whether
she would have gone if Agnes had not been in town, and
whether Agnes had some good influence over her too !

She did not look very happy, I thought ; but it was a
good face, or a very false one. I often glanced at it, for
she sat in the window all the time we were at work ; and
made our breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were
employed. When I left, at nine o'clock, she was kneeling
on the ground at the Doctor's feet, putting on his shoes
and gaiters for him. There was a softened shade upon her
face, thrown from some green^ leaves overhanging the open
window of the low room ; and I thought all the way to
Doctors' Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking
at him as he read.

I was pretty busy now ; up at five in the morning, and
home at nine or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfac-
tion in being so closely engaged, and never walked slowly
on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the more I
tired myself, the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had
not revealed myself in my altered character to Dora yet,
because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few days,
and I deferred all I had to tell her until then ; merely in-
forming her in my letters (all our communications were
secretly forwarded through Miss Mills), that I had much
to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on a short
allowance of bear's grease, wholly abandoned scented soap
and lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a pro-
digious sacrifice, as being too luxurious for my stern career-
Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with
impatience to do something more, I went to see Traddles,
now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in Castle
Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been with me to
Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companion ■
ship with the Doctor, I took with me.

I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to
my aunt's reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-
slave cr convict worked as I did, he had begun to fret and
worry himself out of spirits and appetite, as having nothing
useful to do. In this condition, he felt more incapable of
finishing the Memorial than ever ; and the harder he worked
at it, the oftener that unlucky head of King Charles the
First got into it. Seriously apprehending that his malady

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 527

would increase, unless we put some innocent deception upon
him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless
we could put him in the way of being really useful (which
would be better), I made up my mind to try if Traddles
could help us. Before we went I wrote Traddles a full
statement of all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me
back a capital answer, expressive of his sympathy and
friendship. •

We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers,
refreshed by the sight of the flowerpot-stand and the little
round table in a corner of the small apartment. He received
us cordially, and made friends with Mr. Dick in a moment.
Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him
before, and we both said, " Very likely."

The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was
this.— I had heard that many men distinguished in various
pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in Parlia-
ment. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to me, as
one of his hopes, I had put the two things together, and
told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I
could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now in-
formed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere
mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for
thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and en-
tire command of the mystery of shorthand writing and
reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six
languages ; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint
of perseverance, in the course of a few years. Traddles
reasonably supposed that this would settle the business;
but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees
to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on
to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand.

"I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles,.
said I. " I'll begin to-morrow."

Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he
had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition.

"I'll buy a book," said I, "with a good scheme of this
art in it; I'll work at it at the Commons, where I haven't
half enough to do ; I'll take down the speeches in our court
for practice— Traddles, my dear fellow, I'll master it!

"Dear me," said Traddles, opening his eyes, "I had no
idea you were such a determined character, Copperfield!
I don't know how he should "have had, for it was new

o2S PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

enough to me. I passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick
on the carpet.

"You see," said Mr. Dick wistfully, "if I could exert
myself, Mr. Traddles — if I could beat a drum or blow
anything ! "

Poor fellow ! I have little doubt he would have preferred
such an employment in his heart to all others. Traddles,
who would not have smiled for the world, replied com-
posedly :

" But you are a very good penman, Sir. Y"ou told me
so, Copperfield? "

"Excellent!" said I. And. indeed he was. He wrote
with extraordinary neatness.

"Don't you think," said Traddles, "you could copy
writings, Sir, if I got them for j'ou? "

Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. "Eh, Trotwood? "

I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed.
"Tell him about the Memorial," said Mr. Dick.

I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in
keeping King Charles the First out of Mr. Dick's manu-
scripts ; Mr. Dick in the meanwhile looking very deferen-
tially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking his thumb.

" But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are al-
ready drawn up and finished," said Traddles, after a little
consideration. " Mr. Dick has nothing to do with them.
Wouldn't that make a difference, Copperfield? At all
events, wouldn't it be well to try? "

This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads
together apart, while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from
nis chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got
him to work next day, with triumphant success.

On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set
out the work Traddles procured for him — which was to
make, I forget how many copies of a legal document about
some right of way — and on another table we spread the
last unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our in-
structions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly
what he had before him, without the least departure from
the original ; and that when he felt it necessary to make
the slightest allusion to King Charles the First, he should
fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in
this, and left 1113- aunt to observe him. My aunt reported
to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 529

the kettle -drums, and constantly divided his attentions be-
tween the two ; but that, finding this confuse and fatigue
him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he
soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and post-
poned the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word,
although we took great care that he should have no more to
do than was good for him, and although he did not begin
with the beginning of the week, he earned by the following
Saturday night ten shillings and ninepence; and never,
while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops
in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences,
or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a
heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes,
He was like one under the propitious influence of a charm,
from the moment of his being usefully employed ; and if
there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night,
it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most
wonderful woman in existence, and me the most wonderful
young man.

"So starving now, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, shaking
hands with me in a corner. "I'll provide for her, Sir!"
and he flourished his ten fingers in the air, as if they were
ten banks.

I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or
I. "It really," said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter
out of his pocket, and giving it to me, "put Mr. Micawber
quite out of my head ! "

The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible op-
portunity of writing a letter) was addressed to me, " By the
kindness of T. Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple."
It ran thus : —

" My dear Coppereield,

" You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the in-
timation that something has turned up. I may have men-
tioned to you on a former occasion that I was in expectation
of such an event.

" I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial
towns of our favoured island (where the society may be
described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the
clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned
professions. Mrs. Micawber and our. offspring will accom-
pany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be
34

530 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable
pile, for which the spot to which I refer, has acquired a
reputation, shall I say from China to Peru?

"In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we
have undergone many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs.
Micawber and myself cannot disguise from our minds that
we part, it may be for years and it may be for ever, with
an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of
our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you
will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles,
to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes
natural to the occasion, you will confer a Boon
"On
"One
"Who
"Is

" Ever yours,

"Wilkins Micawber."

I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his
dust and ashes, and that something really had turned up at
last. Learning from Traddles that the invitation referred
to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness
to do honour to it ; and we went off together to the lodging
which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which
was situated near the top of the Gray's Inn Road.

The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we
found the twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing
in a turn-up bedstead in the family sitting-room, where Mr.
Micawber had prepared, in a washhand-stand jug, what he
called a " Brew " of the agreeable beverage for which he was
famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing
the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a
promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject tc
that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phe-
nomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more
known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr.
Micawber told us, " her mother renewed her youth, like the
phoenix."

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "yourself
and Mr. Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and
will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position."

Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 531

that the family effects were already packed, and that the
amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming. I
congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching change.

"My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "of
your friendly interest in all our affairs, I am well assured.
My family may consider it banishment, if they please ; but
I am a wife and mother, and I never will desert Mr. Micaw-
ber."

Traddles, appealed to, by Mrs. Micawber' s eye, feelingly
acquiesced.

" That," said Mrs. Micawber, "that, at least, is my view,
my dear Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation
which I took upon myself when I repeated the irrevocable
words, ' I, Emma, take thee, Wilkins.' I read the service
over with a flat-candle on the previous night, and the con-
clusion I derived from it was, that I never could desert Mr.
Micawber. And," said Mrs. Micawber, "though it is pos-
sible I may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I
never will! "

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, "I
am not conscious that you are expected to do anything of
the sort."

"I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield," pursued Mrs.
Micawber, "that I am now about to cast my lot among
strangers ; and I am also aware that the various members
of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the
most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not
taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber' s communication.
Indeed I may be superstitious," said Mrs. Micawber, " but
it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined never to
receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the
communications he writes. I may augur from the silence
of my family, that they object to the resolution I have
taken ; but I should not allow myself to be swerved from
the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and
mama, were they still living."

I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right
direction.

"It maybe a sacrifice," said Mrs. Micawber, "to immure
one's self in a Cathedral town ; but surely, Mr. Copperfield,
if it is a sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a
man of Mr. Micawber' s abilities."

" Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town? " said I.

532 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the
washhand-stand jug, replied :

" To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have
entered into arrangements, by virtue of which I stand
pledged and contracted to our friend, Heep, to assist and
serve him in the capacity of — and to be — his confidential
clerk."

I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed ny sur-
prise.

" I am bound to state to you," he said, with an official
air, " that the business habits, and the prudent suggestions,
of Mrs. Micawber, have in a great measure conduced to this
result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. Micawber referred
upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form of
an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and
led to a mutual recognition. Of my friend Heep," said
Mr. Micawber, "who is a man of remarkable shrewdness, I
desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend Heep
has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure,
but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from
the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the
value of my services ; and on the value of those services, I
pin my faith. Such address and intelligence as I chance
to possess," said Mr. Micawber, boastfully disparaging him-
self, with the old genteel air, "will be devoted to my friend
Heep's service. I have already some acquaintance with the
law — as a defendant on civil process — and I shall immedi-
ately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most
eminent and remarkable of our English jurists. I believe
it is unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. Justice Black-
stone."

These observations, and indeed the greater part of the
observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs.
Micawber' s discovering that Master Micawber was sitting
on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if
he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under th$
table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing
them at distances from himself apparently outrageous tc
nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine^
glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some othez
form incompatible with the general interests of society ; and
by Master Micawber' s receiving those discoveries in a resent'
ful spirit. I sat all the while, amazed by Mr. Micawber'?

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 533

disclosure, and wondering what it meant ; until Mrs. Micaw-
ber resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my
attention.

" What I particularly request Mr. Mieawber to be careful
of, is," said Mrs. Mieawber, " that he does not, my dear Mr.
Copperfield, in applying himself to this subordinate branch
of the law, place it out of his power to rise, ultimately, to
the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. Mieawber,
giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile
resources, and his flow of language, must distinguish him-
self. Now, for example, Mr. Traddles," said Mrs. Mieaw-
ber. assuming a profound air, "a judge, or even say a
chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond the
pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as
Mr. Mieawber has accepted? "

" My dear," observed Mr. Mieawber — but glancing inquis-
itively at Traddles, too ; " we have time enough before us,
for the consideration of those questions."

" Mieawber," she returned, " no ! Your mistake in life is,
that you do not look forward far enough. You are bound,
in justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a
comprehensive glance the extreme st point in the horizon to
which your abilities may lead you."

Mr. Mieawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air
of exceeding satisfaction — still glancing at Traddles, as if
he desired to have his opinion.

" Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Mieawber," said
Traddles, mildly breaking the truth to her, " I mean the
real prosaic fact, you know "

"Just so," said Mrs. Mieawber, "my dear Mr. Traddles,
I wish to be as prosaic and litera as possible on a subject
of so much importance."

" — Is," said Traddles, " that this branch of the law, even
if Mr. Mieawber were a regular solicitor "

"Exactly so," returned Mrs. Mieawber. ("Wilkins,
you are squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes
back.")

" — Has nothing," pursued Traddles, "to do with that.
Only a barrister is eligible for such preferments ; and Mr.
Mieawber could not be a barrister, without being entered
at an inn of court as a student, for live years."

"Do I follow you? " said Mrs. Mieawber, with her most
affile air of business. "Do I understand, my dear Mr

534 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Traddles, that, at the expiration of that period, Mr. Micaw
ber would be eligible as a judge or chancellor? "

" He would be eligible" returned Traddles, with a strong
emphasis on that word.

" Thank you," said Mrs. Micawber. " That is quite suf-
ficient. If such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no
privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at
rest. I speak," said Mrs. Micawber, "as a female, neces-
sarily ; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Micaw-
ber possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived
at home, the judicial mind ; and I hope Mr. Micawber is
now entering on a field where that mind will develop itself,
and take a commanding station."

I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his
judicial mind's eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand
complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious
resignation :

" My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune.
If I am reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared,
externally," in allusion to his baldness, " for that distinc-
tion. I do not," said Mr. Micawber, "regret my hair, and
I may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. I
cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to
educate my son for the Church ; I will not deny that I
should be happy, on his account, to attain to eminence."

"For the Church?" said I, still pondering, between
whiles, on Uriah Heep.

" Yes," said Mr. Micawber. " He has a remarkable head-
voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at
Canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable
him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the
Cathedral corps."

On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he ha<?
a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his
eyebrows; where it presently appeared to be, on his singing
us (as an alternative between that and bed), " The Wood-
Pecker tapping." After many compliments on this per-
formance, we fell into some general conversation ; and as 1
was too full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered
circumstances to myself, I made them known to Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how extremely delighted
they both were, by the Idea of my aunt's being in difficul-
ties ; and how comfortable and friendly it made them.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 535

When we were nearly come to the last round of the
punch, I addressed myself to Traddles, and reminded him
that we must not separate, without wishing our friends
health, happiness, and success in their new career. I begged
Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast
in due form : shaking hands with him across the table, and
kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that eventful occa-
sion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular, but did
not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture on
the second.

" My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, rising with
one of his thumbs in each of his waistcoat-pockets, " the
companion of my youth : if I may be allowed the expression
— and my esteemed friend Traddles : if I maybe permitted
to call him so— will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micaw-
ber, myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warm-
est and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes.
It may be expected that on the eve of a migration which
will consign us to a perfectly new existence," Mr. Micawber
spoke as if they were going five hundred thousand miles,
" I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such
friends as I see before me. But all that I have to say in
this way, I have said. Whatever station in society I may
attain, through the medium of the learned profession of
which I am about to become an unworthy member, I shall
endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be safe
to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary
liabilities, contracted with a view to their immediate liqui-
dation, but remaining unliquidated through a combination of
circumstances, I have been under the necessity of assuming
a garb from which my natural instincts recoil — I allude to
spectacles — and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which
I can establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to
say on that score is, that the cloud has passed from the
dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more high upon
the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the
four o'clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be
on my native heath — my name, Micawber ! "

Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these re-
marks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession.
He then said with much solemnity :

" One thing more I have to do, before this separation is
complete, and that is to perform an act of justice. My

636 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

friend Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two several occasions,
'put his name,' if I may use a common expression, to bills
of exchange for my accommodation. On the first occasion
Mr Thomas Traddles was left — let me say, in short, in the
lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived.
The amount of the first obligation," here Mr. Micawbei
carefully referred to papers, " was, I believe, twenty-three,
four, nine, and a half ; of the second, according to my entry
of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united;
make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to
forty-one, ten, eleven, and a half. My friend Copperfield
will perhaps do me the favour to check that total?"

I did so and found it correct.

" To leave this metropolis, " said Mr. Micawber, " and my
friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of
the pecuniary part of this obligation, would weigh upon my
mind to an insupportable extent. I have, therefore, pre-
pared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold
in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired
object. I beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles
my I. 0. U. for forty-one, ten, eleven and a half, and I am
happy to recover my moral dignity, and to know that I can
once more walk erect before my fellow-man ! "

With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr.
Micawber placed his I. 0. U. in the hands of Traddles, and
said he wished him well in every relation of life. I am
persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to Mr.
Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself
hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think
about it.

Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow-man, on
the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked
half as broad again when he lighted us down stairs. We
parted with great heartiness on both sides; and when I
had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home
alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory
things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was,
I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection
he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been
asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had
the moral courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he
knew that (to his credit be it written), quite as well as I did

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 53'

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A LITTLE COLD WATER.

My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was
stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions
that I felt the crisis required. I continued to walk extremely
fast, and to have a general idea that I was getting on. I
made it a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly
could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied
my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even
entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet,
vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a graminivorous ani-
mal, I should sacrifice to Dora.

As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate
firmness, otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it
forth. But, another Saturday came, and on that Saturday
evening she was to be at Miss Mills's ; and when Mr. Mills
had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to me in the street,
by a birdcage in the drawing-room middle window), I was
to go there to tea.

By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham
Street, where Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of
absolute felicity. My aunt had obtained a signal victory
over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing the first
pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and pro-
tecting in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumer-
ary whom she engaged from the outer world. These vigor-
ous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp,
that she subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression
that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indiffer-
ent to Mrs. Crupp' s opinion and everybody else's, and
rather favouring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp,
of late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted,,
that rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she
would endeavour to hide her portly form behind doors —
leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat
— or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my auut
such unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a

538 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

delight in prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely
perched on the top of her head, at times when Mrs. Crupp
was likely to be in the way.

My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made
so many little improvements in our domestic arrangements,
that I seemed to be richer instead of poorer. Aanong the
rest, she converted the pantry into a dressing-room for me ;
and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupa-
tion, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime, as a
bedstead could. I was the object of her constant solicitude ,
and my poor mother herself could not have loved me better,
or studied more how to make me happy.

Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in be-
ing allowed to participate in these labours ; and, although
she still retained something of her old sentiment of awe in
reference to my aunt, had received so many marks of en-
couragement and confidence, that they were the best friends
possible. But the time had now come (I am speaking of
the Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills's) when
it was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the
discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of
Ham. "So good bye, Barkis," said my aunt, "and take
care of yourself! I am sure I never thought I could be
sorry to lose you ! "

I took Peggotty to the coach-office, and saw her off. She
cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship
as Ham had done. We had jjeard nothing of him since he
went away, that sunny afternoon.

"And now, my own dear Davy," said Peggotty, "if,
while you're a prentice, you should want any money to
spend; or if, when you're out of your time, my dear, you
should want any to set you up (and you must do one or
other, or both, my darling) ; who has such a good right to
ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl's own old stupid
me!"

I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in
reply, but that if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would
borrow it of her. Next to accepting a large sum on the
spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more comfort than any-
thing I could have done.

"And, my dear! " whispered Peggotty, "tell the pretty
little angel that I should so have liked to see her, only foi
a minute ! And tell her that before she marries my boy,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 539

I'll come and make your house so beautiful for you, if
you'll let me ! "

I declared that nobody else should touch it ; and this
gave Peggotty such delight, that she went away in good
spirits.

I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the
Commons all day, by a variety of devices, and at the ap-
pointed time in the evening repaired to Mr. Mills's street.
Mr, Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after
dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in
the middle window.

He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the
Club would fine him for being late. At last he came out;
and then I saw my own Dora hang up the birdcage, and
peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when
she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark
injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street, who
could have taken him like a pill.

Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me ; and
Jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls,
under the impression that I was a Bandit ; and we all three
went in, as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried
desolation into the bosom of our joys — not that I meant to
do it, but that I was so full of the subject — by asking Dora,
without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar?

My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association
with the word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair
of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand
in his mouth, or something of that kind ; and she stared at
me with the most delightful wonder.

" How can you ask me anything so foolish ! " pouted
Dora. " Love a beggar ! "

" Dora, my own dearest ! " said I. " / am a beggar ! "

" How can you be such a silly thing," replied Dora, slap-
ping my hand, " as to sit there, telling such stories? I'll
make Jip bite you ! "

Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world
to me, but it was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly
repeated :

" Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David ! "

"I declare I'll make Jip bite you! " said Dora, shaking
her curls, "if you are so ridiculous."

But I looked so serious, that Dora- left off shaking her

540 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

curls, and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder,
and first looked scared and anxious, then began to cry.
That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the sofa,
caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart ; but,
for some time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh
dear! oh dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And
where was Julia Mills ! And oh, take her to Julia Mills,
and go away, please ! until I was almost beside myself.

At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation,
I got Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression of
face, which I gradually soothed until it was only loving,
and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. Then
I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved
her, so dearly, and so dearly ; how I felt it right to offer
to release her from her engagement, because now I was
poor ; how I never could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her ;
how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm
being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how I was
already working with a courage such as none but lovers
knew ; how I had begun to be practical, and to look into
the future ; how a crust well-earned was sweeter far than
a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose,
which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite
surprising to myself, though 1 had been thinking about it,
day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me.

" Is your heart mine still, dear Dora? " said I, raptu-
rously, for I knew by her clinging to me that it was.

"Oh, yes! " cried Dora. "Oh, ves, it's all yours. Oh,
don't be dreadful!"

/dreadful! To Dora!

"Don't talk about being poor, and working hard! " said
Dora, nestling closer to me. "'Oh, don't, don't!"

" My dearest love," said I, "the crust well-earned "

"Oh, yes; but I don't want to hear any more about
crusts ! " said Dora. " And Jip must have a mutton-chop
every day at twelve, or he'll die ! "

I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly
explained to Dora that Jip should have his mutton-chop
with his accustomed regularity. I drew a picture of our
frugal home, made independent by my labour — sketching-
in the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my aunt in
her room up-stairs.

" I am not dreadful now. Dora? " said I, tenderly

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 541

" Oh, no, no ! " cried Dora. " But I hope your aunt will
keep in her own room a good deal! And I hope she's not
a scolding old thing ! "

If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, 1
am sure I did. But I felt she was a little impracticable.
It damped my new-born ardour, to find that ardour so dif-
ficult of communication to her. I made another trial.
When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip's
ears, as he lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said:

" My own ! May I mention something? "

"Oh, please don't be practical!" said Dora, coaxingiy.
" Because it frightens me so ! "

" Sweet heart ! " I returned ; " there is nothing to alarm
you in all this. I want you to think of it quite differently.
I want to make it nerve you, and inspire you, Dora."

"Oh, but that's so shocking! " cried Dora.

" My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character
will enable us to bear much worse things."

"But I haven't got any strength at all," said Dora,
shaking her curls. "Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and
be agreeable ! "

It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held
him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy
little mouth into kissing form, as she directed the operation,
which she insisted should be performed symmetrically,
on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me — reward-
ing myself afterwards for my obedience — and she charmed
me out of my graver character for I don't know how long.

" But, Dora, my beloved ! " said I, at last resuming it ;
" I was going to mention something. "

The Judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen
in love with her, to see her fold her little hands and hold
them up, begging and praying me not to be dreadful any
more.

" Indeed I am not going to be, my darling ! " I assured
her. " But, Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think —
not despondingly, you know; far from that! — but if you
will sometimes think — just to encourage yourself — that you
are engaged to a poor man "

"Don't, don't! Pray don't!" cried Dora. "It's so
very dreadful ! "

"My soul, not at all! " said I, cheerfully. " If you will
sometimes think of that, and look about now and then at

542 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

your papa's housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little
habit— of accounts, for instance "

Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something
that was half a sob and half a scream.

" — It will be so useful to us afterwards," I went on.
" And if you would promise me to read a little — a little
Cookery Book that I would send you, it would be so excel-
lent for both of us. For our path in life, my Dora," said
I, warming with the subject, "is stony and rugged now,
and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way
onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be
met, and we must meet, and crush them ! "

I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand,
and a most enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite un-
necessary to proceed. I had said enough. I had done it
again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where was Julia
Mills ! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please !
So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about
the drawing-room.

I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water
on her face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my
hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless brute and a
ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I besought
her to look up, I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a
smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory
needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora.
I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I
did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a
long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills came
into the room.

"Who has done this! " exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring
her friend.

I replied, "7", Miss Mills! /have done it! Behold the
destroyer ! " — or words to that effect — and hid my i'ace from
the light, in the sofa cushion.

At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we
were verging on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found
out how matters stood, for my dear affectionate little Dora,
embracing her, began exclaiming that I was "a poor
iabourer ; M and then cried for me, and embraced me, and
asked me would I let her give me all her money to keep,
and then fell on Miss Mills's neck_ sobbing as if her tender
hear • were broken

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. £43

Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us.
She ascertained from me in a few words what it was all
about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced her that I
was not a labourer — from my manner of stating the case I
believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went
balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheel-
barrow— and so brought us together in peace. When we
were quite^composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put
some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In
the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that she was ever-
more my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate
ere I could forget her sympathy.

I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured,
so very unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills
replied, on general principles, that the Cottage of content
was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that
where love was, all was.

I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who
should know it better than I, who loved Dora with a love
that never mortal had experienced yet? But on Miss Mills
observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for
some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave
to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine
gender.

I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered
that there was or was not any practical merit in the sugges-
tion I had been anxious to make, concerning the accounts,
the housekeeping, and the Cookery Book?

Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied:

"Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental
suffering and trial supply, in some natures, the place of
years, and I will be as plain with you as if I were a Lady
Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate to our
Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature.
She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to

confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but "

and Miss Mills shook her head.

I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part
of Miss Mills to ask her, whether, for Dora's sake, if she
had any opportunity of luring her attention to such prepara-
tions for an earnest life, she would avail herself of it?
Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I
further asked her if she would take charge of the Cooker/

544 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Book ; and, if she ever could insinuate it upon Dora' s ac-
ceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me thai
crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this trust, too ; but
was not sanguine.

And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature,
that I really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with
anything so ordinary. And she loved me so much, and was
so captivating (particularly when she made Jip stand on his
hind-legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold tha;
nose of his against the hot teapot for punishment because
he wouldn't), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had
got into a Fairy's bower, when I thought of having fright-
ened her, and made her cry.

After tea we had the guitar ; and Dora sang those same
dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on
any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I
felt a much greater Monster than before.

We had only one check to our pleasure, and that hap-
pened a little while before I took my leave, when, Miss
Mills chancing to make some allusion to to-morrow morn-
ing, I unluckily let out that, being obliged to exert myseli
now, I got up at five o'clock. Whether Dora had any idea
that I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say ; but
it made a great impression on her, and she neither played
nor sang any more.

It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu ; and she
said to me, in her pretty coaxing way— as if I were a doll,
I used to think :

"Now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy.
It's so nonsensical! "

"My love," said I, "I have work to do."

" But don' t do it ! " returned Dora. " Why should you \

It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised
face, otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must
work, to live.

" Oh ! How ridiculous ! " cried Dora.

"How shall we live without, Dora?" said I,

" How ? Anyhow ! " said Dora.

She seemed to think she had quite settled the question$
and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from hei
innocent heart, that I would hardly have put her out of
conceit with her answer, for a fortune.

Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most ab

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 545

sorbingly, entirely, and completely. But going on, too,
working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the
irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a
night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened
Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with
a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used
to fancy that my head was turning quite grey.

CHAPTEE XXXVIII.

A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP.

I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parlia-
mentary Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began
to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot, and
hammered at, with a perseverance I may honestly admire.
I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery
of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and
plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few
weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that
were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such
a thing, and in such another position something else, en-
tirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played
by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted
from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a
curve in a wrong place ; not only troubled my waking hours,
but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had groped
my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mas-
tered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself,
there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called ar-
bitrary characters ; the most despotic characters I have ever
known ; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the
beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-
and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. TVhen I had
fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they had
driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I
forgot them ; while I was picking them up, I dropped the
other fragments of the system; in short, it was almost
heartbreaking.

It might have been quite heartbreaking, but for Dora,
who was the stay and anchor of my tempest- driven bark,
35

546 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak in the forP^t
of difficulty, and I went on cutting them down, one after
another, with such vigour, that in three or four months I
was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our
crack speakers in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how
the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and
left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it
were in a fit !

This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying toe
high, and should never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles
for advice ; who suggested that he should dictate speeches
to me, at a pace, and with occasional stoppages, adapted to
my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, I ac-
cepted the proposal ; and night after night, aknost every
night, for a long time, we had a sort of private Parliament
in Buckingham Street, after I came home from the Doctor's

I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else!
My aunt and Mr. Dick represented the Government or the
Opposition (as the case might be), and Traddles, with the
assistance of Enfield's Speaker or a volume of Parliamentary
orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them.
Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep
the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head,
Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke,
Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning,
would work himself into the most violent heats, and de-
liver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and
corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick ; while I used to sit,
at a little distance, with my note -book on my knee, fagging
after him with all my might and main. The inconsistency
and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by
any real politician. He was for any description of policy,
in the compass of a week ; and nailed all sorts of colours
to every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very
like an immovable Chancellor of the Exchequer, would oc-
casionally throw in an interruption or two, as "Hear! " or
" !No ! " or " Oh ! " when the text seemed to require it :
which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country
gentleman) to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr.
Dick got taxed with such things in the course of his Parlia-
mentary career, and was made responsible for such awful
consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind
sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 547

really had been doing something, tending to the annihilation
of the British constitution, and the ruin of the country.

Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock
pointed to midnight, and the candles were burning down.
The result of so much good practice was, that by-and-by I
began to keep pace with Traddles pretty well, and should
have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea what
my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had
got them, I might as well have copied the Chinese inscrip-
tions on an immense collection of tea-chests, or the golden
characters on all the great red and green bottles in the
chemists' shops!

There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all
over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though
with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically
to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace;
stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on
all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know
these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I
was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor's too: and
I really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-
horse.

One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found
Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and
talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining
of pains in his head — he had naturally a short throat, and
I do seriously believe he overstarched himself — I was at
first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that
direction ; but he soon relieved my uneasiness.

Instead of returning my "Good morning " with his usual
affability, he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious man-
ner, and coldly requested me to accompany him to a cer-
tain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a door opening
into the Commons, just within the little archway in St.
Paul's Churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable
state, and with a warm shooting all over me; as if my ap-
prehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed
him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness
of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lefty
air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind mis-
gave me that he had found out about my darling Dora.

If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house,
I could hardly have failed to know what was the matter

548 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

when I followed him into an np-stairs room, and found Miss
Murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard,
on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons,
and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flut-
ings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for
mankind, are now obsolete.

Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat
severely rigid. Mr, Spenlow shut the door, motioned me
to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fire-
place.

"Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield," said Mr.
Spenlow, " what you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone."

I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of
my childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her
lips, in sympathy with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it
— opening her mouth a little at the same time— and produced
my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted
affection.

" I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield? " said
Mr. Spenlow.

I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike
mine, when I said, "It is, Sir! "

" If I am not mistaken, " said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss
Murdstone brought a parcel of letters out of her reticule,
tied round with the clearest bit of blue ribbon, " those are
also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield? "

I took them from her with a most desolate sensation ;
and, glancing at such phrases at the top, as " My ever dear-
est and own Dora," "My best beloved angel," "My blessed
one for ever," and the like, blushed deeply, and inclined
my head.

"No, thank you!" said Mr. Spenlow coldly, as I me-
chanically offered them back to him. " I will not deprive
you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so good as to proceed! "

That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey
of the carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as
follows :

" I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of
Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some
time. I observed Miss Spenlow and David Copperfield,
when they first met ; and the impression made upon me
then was not agreeable The depravity of the human heart
is such "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 549

"You will oblige me, ma'am,-' interrupted Mr. Spenlow,
"by confining yourself to facts."

Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if
protesting against this unseemly interruption, and with
frowning dignity resumed.

" Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them
as dryly as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an ac-
ceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, Sir,
that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference
to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently
endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspi-
cions, but without effect. I have therefore forborne to
mention them to Miss Spenlow' s father;" looking severely
at him ; " knowing how little disposition there usually is in
such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of
duty."

Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly
sternness of Miss Murdstone' s manner, and deprecated her
severity with a conciliatory little wave of his hand.

" On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence
occasioned by my brother's marriage," pursued Miss Murd-
stone in a disdainful voice, " and on the return of Miss
Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, I imagined
that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion
for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spen-
low closely."

Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's
eye!

" Still," resumed Miss Murdstone, " I found no proof
until last night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow
received too many letters from her friend Miss Mills ; but
Miss Mills being her friend with her father's full concur-
rence," another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, " it was not
for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude
to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least I
may — I must — be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced
confidence."

Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent.

" Last evening after tea," pursued Miss Murdstone, " I
observed the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about
the drawing-room, worrying something. I said to Miss
Spenlow, * Dora, what is that the dog has in his mouth?
It's paper ' Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to

550 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I inter
posed, and said, * Dora my love, you must permit me.' "

Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, wag
your work !

"Miss Spenlow endeavoured," sai i Miss Murdstone, "to
bribe me with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of
jewellery — that, of course, I pass over. The little dog
retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was
with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. EveD when
dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth ; and on my
endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of
being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously
as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means
of the document. At length I obtained possession of it
After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many
such letters in her possession ; and ultimately obtained from
her, the packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand."

Here she ceased ; and snapping her reticule again, and
shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but
could never be bent.

" You have heard Miss Murdstone, " said Mr. Spenlow,
turning to me. "I beg to ask, Mr, Copperfield, if you
have anything to say in reply? "

The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treas-
ure of my heart, sobbing and crying all night — of her being
alone, frightened, and wretched, then — of her having so
piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to
forgive her — of her having vainly offered her those kisses,
work-boxes, and trinkets — of her being in such grievous
distress, and all for me — very much impaired the little
dignity I had been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a
tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did my best
to disguise it.

"There is nothing I can say, Sir," I returned, "except
that all the blame is mine. Dora "

" Miss Spenlow, if you please," said her father, majesti-
cally.

— "was induced and persuaded by me," I went on, swal-
lowing that colder designation, " to consent to this conceal-
ment, and I bitterly regret it."

" You are very much to blame, Sir," said Mr. Spenlow,
walking to and fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing
what he said with his whole body instead of his head, on

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 55i

account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. " You have
done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield.
When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether
he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in
a spisit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he
commits a dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield."

"I feel it, Sir, I assure you," I returned. "But I never
thought so, before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spen-
low, I never thought so, before. I love Miss Spenlow to
that extent "

" Pooh ! nonsense ! " said Mr. Spenlow, reddening.
"Pray don't tell me to my face that you love my daughter
Mr. Copperfield!"

"Could I defend my conduct if I did not, Sir?" T re-
turned, with all humility.

" Can you defend your conduct if you do, Sir? " said Mr.
Spenlow, stopping short upon the hearth-rug. " Have you
considered your years, and my daughter's years, Mr. Cop-
perfield? Have you considered what it is to undermine the
confidence that should subsist between my daughter and
myself? Have you considered my daughter's station in
life, the projects I may contemplate for her advancement,
the testamentary intentions I may have with reference to
her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield? "

" Very little, Sir, I am afraid; " I answered, speaking to
him as respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt ; " but pray
believe me, I have considered my own worldly position.
When I explained it to you, we were already engaged "

" I beg," said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had
ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon
the other — I could not help noticing that even in my de-
spair ; " that you will not talk to me of engagements, Mr.
Copperfield!"

The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed con-
temptuously in one short syllable.

" When I explained my altered position to you, Sir," I
began again, substituting a new form of expression for what
was so unpalatable to him, " this concealment, into which
I am so unhappy as to have led Miss Spenlow, had begun.
Since I have been in that altered position, I have strained
every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I
am sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time
■ — any length of time? We are both so young, Sir "

552 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"You are right," interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his
head a great many times, and frowning very much, " you
are both very young. It's all nonsense. Let there be an
end of the nonsense. Take away those letters, and throw
them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow' s letters to throw
in the fire ; and although our future intercourse must, you
are aware, be restricted to the Commons here, we will agree
to make no further mention of the past. Come, Mr. Cop-
perfield, you don't want sense; and this is the sensible
course.''

No. I couldn't think of agreeing to it I was very
sorry, but there was a higher consideration than sense
Love was above all earthly considerations, and I loved Dora
to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn't exactly say so;
I softened it down as much as I could; but I implied it,
and I was resolute upon it. I don't think I made myself
very ridiculous, but I know I was resolute.

'•Very well, Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow? "I
must try my influence with my daughter."

Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long-drawn
respiration, which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was
like both, gave it as her opinion that he should have done
this at first.

" I must try," said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this sup-
port, "my influence with my daughter. Do you decline to
take those letters, Mr. Copperfield? " For I had laid them
on the table.

Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong,
but I couldn't possibly take them from Miss Murdstone.

"Nor from me?" said Mr. Spenlow.

No, I replied with the prof oundest respect ; nor from him.

" Very well ! " said Mr. Spenlow.

A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or
stay. At length I was moving quietly towards the door,
with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult
his feelings best by withdrawing : when he said, with his
hands in his coat-pockets, into which it was as much as he
could do to get them ; and with what I should call, upon
the whole, a decidedly pious air :

w You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not
altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my
daughter is my nearest and dearest relative? "

J hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped

OF DAVTD COPPERFIELD 553

tbe error into which I had been betrayed by the desperate
nature of my love, did not induce him to think me mer-
cenary too?

"I don't allude to the matter in that light." said Mr.
Spenlow. " It would be better for yourself, and all of us,
if you were mercenary, Mr. Copperfield — I mean, if you
were more discreet, and less influenced by all this youthful
nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, you
are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my
child:"

I certainly supposed so.

"And you can hardly think," said Mr, Spenlow, "having
experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every
day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings
of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements — of
all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revela-
tions of human inconsistency are to be met with — but that
mine are made?"

I inclined my head in acquiescence.

"'I should not allow," said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident
increase of pious sentiment, and ."^owly shaking his head as
he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, "my
suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piect
of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. Mere
nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any
feather. But I might — I might — if this silly business were
not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some
anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with
protections against, the consequences of any foolish step
in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that
you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a
quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and
unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long
since composed."

There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm-sunset air
about him, which quite affected me. He was so peaceful
and resigned — clearly had his affairs m such perfect train,
and so systematically wound up — that he was a man to feel
touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears
rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this,

But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my
own heart. When he told me I had better take a week to
consider of what he had said? how could I say I wouldn't

554 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount
of weeks could influence such love as mine?

" In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with
any person with any knowledge of life," said Mr. Spenlow,
adjusting his cravat with both hands. " Take a week, Mr.
Copperfleld."

I submitted ; and, with a countenance as expressive as I
was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy,
came out of the room. Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows
followed me to the door — I sa}T her eyebrows rather than
her eyes, because they were much more important in her
face — and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at
about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunder-
stone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down
in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind
was that horrible old spelling-book with oval woodcuts,
shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of
spectacles.

When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey
and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my
own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had
taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my
spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about
Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush
insanely to Norwood. The idea of their frightening her,
and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort
her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a
wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit
upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored
him to spare her gentle nature — not to crush a fragile flower
— and addressed him generally, to the best of nry remem-
brance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an
Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I sealed and
laid upon his desk before he returned ; and when he came
in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room,
take it up and read it.

He said nothing about it all the morning ; but before he
went away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me
that I need not make myself at all uneasy about his
daughter's happiness. He had assured her, he said, that
it was all nonsense ; and he had nothing more to say to her.
He believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was),
and I might sppr*3 mvself any solicitude on her account

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 555

" You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or ob-
stinate, Mr. Copperfield," he observed, ''for me to send
my daughter abroad again, for a term ; but I have a better
opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than that, in a
few days. As to Miss Murdstone," for I had alluded to
her in the letter, "I respect that lady's vigilance, and feel
obliged to her ; but she has strict charge to avoid the sub-
ject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, that it should be
forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is to
forget it."

All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly
quoted this sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy
sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and what was
that ! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that evening. If
it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction and concur-
rence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen
where the mangle was. I informed her that my reason was
tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could pre-
vent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers distractedly;
and I couldn't help feeling, when I read this composition
over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something
in the style of Mr. Micawber.

However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's
street, and walked up and down, until I was stealthily
fetched in by Miss Mills's maid, and taken the area way to
the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to believe that
there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the
front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room,
except Miss Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious.

In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went
there, I suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite
sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty note from
Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying, "Oh
pray come to me, Julia, do, do ! " But Miss Mills, mis-
trusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher
powers, had not yet gone ; and Ave were all benighted in
the Desert of Sahara.

Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words- and liked to
pour them out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled
her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our
afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the
most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened be-
tween Dora and me, and Lo^e could only span it with itt

556 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; it ever hac
been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills re-
marked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last,
and then Love was avenged.

This was small consolation, buu Miss Mills wouldn't en-
courage fallacious hopes. She made me much more wretched
than I was before, and I felt (and told her with the deepest
gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that
she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, and
find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words,
of my devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed
with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself com-
pletely.

I confided all to my aunt when I got home ; and in spite
of all she could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got
up despairing, and went out despairing. It was Saturday
morning, and I went straight to the Commons.

I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-
door, to see the ticket-porters standing outside talking
together, and some half-dozen stragglers gazing at the
windows, which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and,
passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hur-
riedly in.

The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything.
Old Tiffey, for the first time in his life, I should think,
was sitting on somebody else's stool, and had not hung up
his hat.

" This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield, n saicl he,
as I entered.

" What is? " I exclaimed. " What's the matter? "

" Don't you know? " cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them,
coming round me.

" No ! " said I, looking from face to face.

"Mr Spenlow," said Tiffey

< What about him ! "

"Dead!"

I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of
the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair,
untied my neckcloth, and brought me some water. I have
no idea whether this took any time.

"Dead?" said I.

" He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the
phaeton by himself," said Tiffey. "having sent his owe

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 557

groom home by the coach, as he sometimes did, you
know "

"Well?"

"The phaeton went home without him. The horses
stopped at the stable gate. The man went out with a
lantern. Nobody in the carriage."

"Had they run away? "

"They were not hot," said Tiffey, putting on his glasses;
" no hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going
down at the usual pace. The reins were broken, but they
had been dragging on the ground. The house was roused
up directly, and three of them went out along the road.
They found him a mile off."

"More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey," interposed a junior.

"Was it? I believe you are right," said Tiffey, — " more
than a mile off — not far from the church — lying partly on
the road-side, and partly on the path, upon his face.
Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling ill before
the fit came on — or even whether he was quite dead then,
though there is no doubt he was quite insensible — no one
appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke.
Medical assistance was got as soon as possible, but it was
quite useless."

I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was
thrown by this intelligence. The shock of such an event
happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom I
had been in any respect at variance — the appalling vacancy
in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and
table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yester-
day was like a ghost — the indefinable impossibility of sep-
arating him from the place, and feeling, when the door
opened, as if he might come in — the lazy hush and rest
there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which
our people talked about it, and other people came in and
out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject— this
is easily intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is,
how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, I had a
lurking jealousy even of Death. How I felt as if its might
would push me from my ground in Dora's thoughts. How
I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of
her grief. How it made me restless to think of her weep-
ing to others, or being consoled by others. How I had a
grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her

558 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

but myself, and to oe all in all to her, at that unseasonable
time of all times.

In the trouble of this state of mind — not exclusively my
own, I hope, but known to others — I went down to Nor-
wood that night; and rinding from one of the servants,
when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss Mills was
there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote.
t deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow most sin-
cerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell
Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken
to me with the utmost kindness and consideration ; and had
coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful
word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have
my name brought before her ; but I tried to believe it was
an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it.

My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; ad-
dressed, outside, to her; within, to me. Dora was over-
come by grief ; and when her friend had asked her should
she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always
crying, " Oh, dear papa ! oh, poor papa ! " But she had
not said No, and that I made the most of.

Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occur-
rence, came to the office a few days afterwards. He and
Tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, and
then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in.

" Oh ! " said Mr. Jorkins. " Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr.
Copperfield, are about to examine the desk, the drawers,
and other such repositories of the deceased, with the view
of sealing up his private papers, and searching for a Will.
There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as well for
you to assist us, if you please."

I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the
circumstances in which my Dora would be placed — as, in
whose guardianship, and so forth — and this was something
towards it. We began the search at once; Mr. Jorkins
unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the
papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the
private papers (which were not numerous) on the other.
We were very grave ; and when we came to a stray seal, or
pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which
we associated personally with him, we spoke very low.

We had sealed up several packets ; and were still going
on dustily and quietly, when Mr. Jorkins said to us, apply

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 559

ing exactly the same words to his late partner as his late
partner had applied to him :

" Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten
track. You know what he was ! I am disposed to think
he had made no will."

"Oh, I know he had! " said I.

They both stopped and looked at me.

" On the very day when 1 last saw him," said I, " he told
me that he had, and that his affairs were long since settled."

Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one
accord.

"That looks unpromising," said Tiffey.

"Very unpromising," said Mr. Jorkins.

" Surely you don't doubt " I began.

" My good Mr. Copperfield ! " said Tiffey, laying hi.
hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he
shook his head : " if you had been in the Commons as long
as I have, you would know that there is no subject on which
men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted. "

" Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark ! " I
replied persistently.

" I should call that almost final," observed Tiffey. " My
opinion is— no will."

It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out
that there was no will. He had never so much as thought
of making one, so far as his papers afforded any evidence ;
for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of
any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely
less astonishing to me was, that his affairs were in a most
disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to
make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what
he died possessed. It was considered likely that for years
he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects him-
self. By little and little it came out, that, in the competi-
tion on all points of appearance and gentility then running
high in the Commons, he had spent more than his profes-
sional income, which was not a very large one, and had
reduced his private means, if they ever had been great
(which was exceedingly doubtful) , to a very low ebb indeed.
There was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood ;
and Tiffey told me, little thinking how interested I was in
the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased,
and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful

560 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

debts due to the firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds
for all the assets remaining.

This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had
suffered tortures all the time, and thought I really must
have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still
reported to me, that my broken-hearted little Dora would
say nothing, when I was mentioned, but " Oh, poor papa!
Oh, dear papa!" Also, that she had no other relations
than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived
at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance
communication with their brother for many years. Not
that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me) ; but
that having been, on the occasion of Dora's christening,
invited to tea, when they considered themselves privileged
to be invited to dinner, they had expressed their opinion in
writing, that it was " better for the happiness of all parties "
that they should stay away. Since which they had gone
their road, and their brother had gone his.

These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and
proposed to take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging
to them both, and weeping, exclaimed, "Oh yes, aunts!
Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to Putney!" So
they went, very soon after the funeral.

How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don't
know ; but I contrived, by some means or other, to prowl
about the neighbourhood pretty often. Miss Mills, for the
more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, kept a
journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the Com-
mon, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend
it to me. How I treasured up the entries, of which I sub=
join a sample !

"Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Head-
ache. Called attention to J. as being beautifully sleek.
D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened, opened flood
gates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the
dewdropr of the heart? J. M.)

"Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor.
(Do we not remark this in moon likewise? J. M.) D, , J.
M., and J. took airing in carriage. J. looking out of win-
dow, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned smile
to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain
of life composed ! J. M. )

"Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang ro her

OF DAVID COPPERFIELiJ 561

as congenial melody, Evening Bells. Effect not soothing,
but reverse. D. inexpressibly affected. Found sobbing af-
terwards, in own room. Quoted verses respecting self and
young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to Patience
on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. M.)

''Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night.
Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek. Eesolved to men
tion name of D. C. Introduced same, cautiously, in course
of airing. D. immediately overcome. ' Oh, dear, dear
Julia ! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child ! '
Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on
verge of tomb. D. again overcome. ' Oh, what shall I
do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere !' Much
alarmed. Fainting of D and glass of water from public-
house. (Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on doorpost:
chequered human life. Alas! J. M.)

"Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen,
with blue bag, ' for lady's boots left out to heel.' Cook
replies, ' No such orders.' Man argues point. Cook with*
draws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On Cook's
return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J.
missing. D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man
to be identified by broad nose, and legs like balustrades of
bridge. Search made in every direction. No J. D. weep-
ing bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed reference to young
Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening,
strange boy calls, Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but
no balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog.
Declines to explain further, though much pressed. Pound
being produced by D., takes Cook to little house, where J.
alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of D. , who dances round
J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy
change, mention D. C upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries
piteously, 'Oh, don't, don't, don't! It is so wicked to
think of anything but poor papa! '—embraces J. and sobs
herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confine himself to the
broad pinions of Time? J. M.) "

Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at
this period. To see her, who had seen Dora, but a little
while before — to trace the initial letter of Dora's name
through her sympathetic pages— to be made more and more
miserable by her— were my only comforts. I felt as if I
had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled
36

56L PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins ; as
if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the
innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but
those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many
people over so much, would enable me to enter 1

CHAPTER XXXIX.

, WICKFIELD AND HEEP.

My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously un
comfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence oi
being anxious that I should go to Dover, to see that all was
working well at the cottage, which was let ; and to conclude
an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of
occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs.
Strong, where I saw her every day. She had been unde-
cided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the finishing
touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had
been educated, by marrying a pilot ; but she decided against
that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I
believe, as because she happened not to like him.

Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell
rather willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of en-
abling me to pass a few tranquil hours with Agnes. I con-
suited the good Doctor relative to an absence of three days ;
and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation, — he
wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear
that, — I made up my mind to go.

As to the Commons, I haa _o great occasion to be par-
ticular about my duties in that quarter. To say the truth,
we were getting in no very good odour among the tip-top
proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful
position. The business had been indifferent under Mr.
Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow's time; and although it had
been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by the
display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established
on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken,
such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It
fell off very much. Mr, Jorkins, notwithstanding his repu-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 563

tation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man,
whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it
up. I was turned over to him now, and when I saw him
take his snuff and let the business go, I regretted my aunt's
thousand pounds more than ever.

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number
of hangers-on and outsiders about the Commons, who, with-
out being proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form
business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their
names in consideration of a share in the spoil; — and there
were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted
business on any terms, we joined this noble band ; and threw
out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their
business to us. Marriage licences and small probates were
what we all looked for, and what paid us best ; and the
competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers
and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to
the Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut
off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything
bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices
in which their respective employers were interested ; which
instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I
was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of
our principal opponent. The conflicting interests of these
touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their feelings,
personal collisions took place ; and the Commons was even
scandalized by our principal inveigler (who had formerly
been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery
line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any
one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely assist-
ing an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor
whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the law-
ful successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing
the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) to his employ-
er's office. Many captives were brought to me in this way
As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch,
that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but
submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and
become the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who
was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit
with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and
swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in.
The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day

564 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied
person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a door-
way, and whispering the word " Marriage-licence " in my
ear, was with great4 difficulty prevented from' taking me up
iif his arms and lifting me into a proctor's.

From this digression, let me proceed to Dover.

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage ;
and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by report-
ing that the tenant inherited her feud, and waged incessant
war against donkeys. Having settled the little business I
had to transact there, and slept there one night, I walked
on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter
again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping
downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets
with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my
heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the
shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so long,
since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered the
place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I
was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence
which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed, to
pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable
Cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose
airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence
would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full
with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like
the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still
nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled
ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral
landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere — on
everything— I felt the same serener air, the same calm,
thoughtful, softening spirit.

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little
lower room on the ground-floor, where Uriah Heep had been
of old accustomed to sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen with
great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking suit
of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small
office.

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little
confused too. He would have conducted me immediately
into the presence of Uriah, but I declined.

"I know the house of old, you recollect, " said I, "and

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 565

will find my way up-stairs. How do you like the law, Mr.
Micawber? "

" My dear Copperfield," he replied. " To a man pos-
sessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to
legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve.
Even in our professional correspondence,''' said Mr. Micaw-
ber, glancing at some letters he was writing, " the mind is
not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression.
Still, it is a great pursuit. A great pursuit ! "

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah
Heep's old house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be de-
lighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof.
' " It is humble," said Mr. Micawber, " to quote a favourite
expression of my'friend Heep; but it may prove the step-
ping-stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation."

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied
with his friend Heep's treatment of him? He got up to
ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in
a lower voice :

"My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the
pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the gener-
ality of people, at a disadvantage. That disadvantage is not
diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing
of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are
strictly due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend
Heep has responded to appeals to which I need not more
particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally
to the honour of his head, and of his heart."

" I should not have supposed him to be very free with
his money either," I observed.

" Pardon me ! " said Mr. Micawber, with an air of con-
straint, "I speak of my friend Heep as I have experience."

"I am glad your experience is so favourable," I returned.

"You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield," said Mr.
Micawber; and hummed a tune.

" Do you see much of Mr, Wickfield? " I asked, to change
the subject.

''Not much," said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. "Mr.
Wickfield is, I dare say, a man of very excellent intentions;
but he is — in short, he is obsolete."

" I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so," said I.

" My dear Copperfield ! " returned Mr. Micawber, after
some uneasy evolutions on his stool, "allow me to offer a

566 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

remark! I am here, in a capacity of confidence. I am
here, in a position of trust. The discussion of some topics,
even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of
my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable
lucidity of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible
with the functions now devolving on me. I would there-
fore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly in-
tercourse— which I trust will never be disturbed ! — we draw
a line. On one side of this line," said Mr. Micawber,
representing it on the desk with the office ruler, "is the
whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling excep-
tion; on the other, is that exception; that is to say, the
affairs of Messrs. Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging
and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to
the companion of my youth, in submitting this proposition
to his cooler judgment? "

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which
sat tightly on him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt
I had no right to be offended. My telling him so, appeared
to relieve him ; and he shook hands with me.

"I am charmed, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "let
me assure you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior
young lady, of very remarkable attractions, graces, and
virtues. Upon my honour," said Mr. Micawber, indefi-
nitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air,
" I do homage to Miss Wickfield ! Hem ! "

" I am glad of that, at least," said I.

" If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the
occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness
of passing with you, that D. was your favourite letter,"
said Mr. Micawber, " I should unquestionably have supposed
that A. had been so."

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes ovei
us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having
been said and done before, in a remote time — of our having
been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects,
and circumstances — of our knowing perfectly what will be
said next, as if we suddenly remembered it ! I never had
this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than
before he uttered those words.

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging
him with my best remembrances to all at home. As I left
him, resuming his stool and his pen, and rolling his head

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 567

in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, I clearly
perceived that there was something interposed between him
and me, since he had come into his new functions, which
prevented our getting at each other as we used to do, and
quite altered the character of our intercourse.

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though
it presented tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabout. I looked
into the room still belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting
by the fire, at a pretty old-fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a
pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her atten-
tive face, and th.e object of that sweet regard and welcome !

" Ah, Agnes ! " said I, when we were sitting together,
side by side ; " I have missed you so much, lately ! "

" Indeed? " she replied. " Again ! And so soon? "

I shook my head.

" I don't know how it is, Agnes ; I seem to want some
faculty of mind that I ought to have. You were so much
in the habit of thinking for me, in the happy old days here,
and I came so naturally to you for counsel and support,
that I really think I have missed acquiring it ! "

"And what is it? " said Agnes, cheerfully.

"I don't know what to call it," I replied. "I think I
am earnest and persevering? "

" I am sure of it," said Agnes.

"And patient, Agnes?" I inquired, with a little hesita-
tion.

"Yes," returned Agnes, laughing. "Pretty well."

"And yet," said I, "I get so miserable and worried, and
am so unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring my-
self, that I know I must want — shall I call it — reliance, of
some kind? "

"Call it so, if you will," said Agnes.

"Well," I returned. " See here ! You come to London,
I rely on you, and I have an object and a course at once.
I am driven out of it, I come here, and in a moment I feel
an altered person. The circumstances that distressed me
are not changed, since I came into this room ; but an influ-
ence comes over me in that short interval that alters me,
oh, how much for the better! What is it? What is your
secret, Agnes?"

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

" It's the old story," said I- " Don't laugh, when I say it-

568 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones
My old troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious ; but
whenever I have gone away from my adopted sister "

Agnes looked up — with such a heavenly face ! — and gave
me her hand, which I kissed.

"Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and
approve in the beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to
get into all sorts of difficulty. When I have come to you>
at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace and
happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and
find such a blessed sense of rest ! "

I felt so deeply what I said,- it affected me so sincerely,
that my voice failed, and I covered my face with my hand,
and broke into tears. I write the truth. Whatever con-
tradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as
there are within so many of us ; whatever might have been
so different, and so much better ; whatever I had done, in
which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of
my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I
was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of
having Agnes near me.

In her placid sisterly manner ; with her beaming eyes ;
with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure,
which had long ago made the house that held her quite a
sacred place to me ; she soon won me from this weakness,
and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last
meeting.

"And there is not another word to tell, Agnes," said I,
when I had made an end of my confidence. " Now, my
reliance is on you."

" But it must not be on me, Trotwood," returned Agnes,
with a pleasant smile. " It must be on some one else."

"On Dora?" said I.

" Assuredly."

u Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes," said I, a little
embarrassed, "that Dora is rather difficult to — I would
not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the
soul of purity and truth — but rather difficult to — I hardly
Know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid
little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some
time ago, before her father's death, when I thought it right
to mention to her — but I'll tell y<~>u, if you will bear with
me, how it was "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 569

Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of pov-
erty, about the Cookery Book, the housekeeping accounts,
and all the rest of it.

" Oh, Trotwood ! " she remonstrated, with a smile.
" Just your old headlong way ! You might have been in
earnest in striving to get on in the world, without being
so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl.
Poor Dora ! "

I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed
in a voice, as she expressed in making this reply. It was
as if I had seen her admiringly and tenderly embracing
Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate protec-
tion, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. It
was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artless-
ness, caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly
appealing against me, and loving me with all her childish
innocence.

I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so ! I saw
those two together, in a bright perspective, such well-asso-
ciated friends, each adorning the other so much !

" What ought I to do then, Agnes? " I inquired, after
looking at the fire a little while. " What would it be right
to do? "

"I think," said Agnes, "that the honourable course to
take, would be to write to those two ladies. Don't you
think that any secret course is an unworthy one? "

" Yes. If you think so," said I.

" I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters," replied
Agnes, with a modest hesitation, " but I certainly feel-
in short, I feel that your being secret and clandestine, is
not being like yourself."

" Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me,
Agnes, I am afraid," said I.

"Like yourself, in the candour of your nature," she
returned; " and therefore I would write to those two ladies.
I would relate, as plainly and as openly as possible, all
that has taken place ; and I would ask their permission to
visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are
young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be
well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions
they might impose upon you. I would entreat them not
to dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and
to discuss it with her when they should think the time suit-

570 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

able. I would not be too vehement," said Agnes, gently >
" or propose too much, I would trust to my fidelity and
perseverance — and to Dora."

"But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by
speaking to her," said I. " And if Dora were to cry, and
say nothing about me ! "

"Is that likely?" inquirea Agnes, with the same sweet
consideration in her face

" God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird," said
I. " It might be ! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly
ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should
not be likely persons to address in that way ! "

" I don't think, Trotwood," returned Agnes, raising her
soft eyes to mine, "I would consider that. Perhaps it
would be better only to consider whether it is right to do
this; and, if it is, to do it."

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a light-
ened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty
importance of my task, I devoted the whole afternoon to
the composition of the draft of this letter ; for which great
purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I
went down stairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling
office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily
mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. He
received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not
to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber ; a pretence
I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me
into Mr. Wickfield' s room, which was the shadow of its
former self — having been divested of a variety of conve-
niences, for the accommodation of the new partner — and
stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his
chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I ex-
changed greetings.

" You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Can-
terbury?" said Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at
Uriah for his approval.

" Is there room for me? " said I.

" I am sure, Master Copperfield — T should say Mister,
but the other comes so natural," said Uriah, — " I would
turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be
agreeable."

"No, no," said Mr Wickfield. "Why should you be

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 57;;

inconvenienced? There's another room. There's another
room."

"Oh, but you know," returned Uriah, with a grin, "1
should really be delighted ! "

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other
room or none at all ; so it was settled that I should have
the other room : and, taking my leave of the firm until din-
ner, I went up stairs again.

I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes.
But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and
her knitting near the fire, in that room ; on pretence of its
having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as
the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-
parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the
mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathe-
dral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and
gave her a friendly salutation.

"I'm umbly thankful to you, Sir," said Mrs. Heep, in
acknowledgment of my inquiries concerning her health,
" but I'm only pretty well. I haven't much to boast of. If
I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn't expect
much more, I think. How do you think my Ury looking,
Sir? "

I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I re-
plied that I saw no change in him,

"Oh, don't you think he's changed?" said Mrs. Heep.
" There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't
you see a thinness in him? "

"Not more than usual," I replied.

" DonH you though! " said Mrs. Heep. a But you don't
take notice of him with a mother's eye! "

His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the
world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to
him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one
another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.

"Don't you see a wasting an;' a wearing in him, Miss
Wickfield? " inquired Mrs. Heep.

" No," said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which
she was engaged " You are too solicitous about him He
is very well "

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived
early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before

572 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as
monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its
sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk
in front of it ; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat
Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I
lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of
Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me?
with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently
of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and com-
ing back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the
knitting. What the knitting was, I don't know, not being
learned in that art ; but it looked like a net ; and as she
worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-
needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking
enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness oppo-
site, but getting ready for a cast of her net by-and-by.

At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same
unwinking eyes. After dinner, her son took his turn; and
when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I were left alone to-
gether, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly bear
it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting
and watching again. All the time that Agnes sang and
played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for
a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was
yawning in a great chair) doted on ; and at intervals she
looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in
raptures with the music. But she hardly ever spoke — I
question if she ever did — without making some mention of
him. It was evident to me that this was the duty assigned
to her.

This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and
son, like two great bats hanging over the whole house, and
darkening it with their ugly forms, made me so uncomfort-
able; that I would rather have remained down-stairs, knit-
ting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep.
Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted
all day.

I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten
minutes. I could barely show her my letter. I proposed
to her to walk out with me ; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly
complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably remained
within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went
out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 573

T was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer,
what Uriah Heep had told rue in London : for that began
to trouble me again, very much.

I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the
town, upon the Ramsgate road, where there was a good
path, when I was hailed, through the dust, by somebody
behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty great-
cpat, were not to be mistaken I stopped, and Uriah Heep
eame up.

" Well? " said I

" How fast you walk ! " said he, " My legs are pretty
long, but you've given 'em quite a job."

"Where are you going? " said I.

"I am coming with you, Master Copperfield, if you'lL
allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance."
Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have
been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step beside
ore.

" Uriah! " said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence.

" Master Copperfield ! " said Uriah.

" To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended),
I came out to walk alone, because I have had so much
company."

He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest
grin : " You mean mother? "

" Why yes, I do," said I.

" Ah ! But you know we're so very umble," he returned.
" And having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we
must really take care that we're not pushed to the wall by
them as isn't umble. All stratagems are fair in love.
Sir."

Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he
rubbed them softly, and softly chuckled ; looking as like a
malevolent baboon, I thought, as anything human could
look.

" You see," he said, still hugging himself in that un-
pleasant way, and shaking his head at me, "you're quite a
dangerous rival, Master Copperfield. You always was, you
know."

" Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make he :
home no home, because of me ? " said I.

" Oli ! Master Copperfiehl ! Those are very arsh words. ''"
he replied.

574 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Put my meaning into any words you like," said 1.
'' "You know what it is, Uriah, as well as I do *

" Oh no! You must put it into words," he said. " Oh,
really! I couldn't myself."

"Do you suppose," said I, constraining myself to be
very temperate and quiet with him, on account of Agnes,
"that I regard Miss Wickfield otherwise than as a very
dear sister? "

"Well, Master Copperfield," he replied, "you perceive I
am not bound to answer that question You may not, you
know. But then, you see, you may! "

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of
his shadowless eyes, without the ghost of an eyelash, I
never saw.

" Come, then ! " said I " For the sake of Miss Wick-
field "

" My Agnes ! " he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular con-
tortion of himself. " Would you be so good as call her
Agnes, Master Copperfield? "

"For the sake of Agnes Wickfield — Heaven bless her! "

" Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield ! " he
interposed.

" I will tell you what I should, under any other circum-
stances, as soon have thought of telling to — Jack Ketch."

" To who, Sir? " said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and
shading his ear with his hand.

"To the hangman," I returned. "The most unlikely
person I could think of," — though his own face had sug-
gested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. " I am
engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents you."

" Upon your soul? " said Uriah.

I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confir-
mation he required, when he caught hold of my hand, and
gave it a squeeze.

" Oh, Master Copperfield," he said. " If you had only
had the condescension to return my confidence when I
poured out the fulness of my art, the night I put you so
much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room
fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I'm sure
I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know
you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you?
What a. pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn't condescend
to return my confidence ! I'm sure T gave you every oppor*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 575

trinity. But you never have condescended to me, as much
as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me,
as I have liked you ! "

All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp
fishy lingers, while I made every effort I decently could to
get it away. But I was quite unsuccessful. He drew it
under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured great-coat, "and
I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm in arm with
'him

"Shall we turn?" said Uriah, by-and-by wheeling me
face about toTv ards the town, on which the early moon was
now shining, silvering the distant windows.

"'Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,"
said I, breaking a pretty long silence, " that I believe
Agnes Wickfield to be as far above you, and as far removed
from all your aspirations, as that mospn herself! "

"Peaceful! Ain't she!" said Uriah. "Very! iSTow
confess, Master Copperfield, that you haven't liked me
quite as I have liked you. All along you've thought me
too umble now, I shouldn't wonder? "

" I am not fond of professions of humility," T returned,
"or professions of anything else."

" There now ! " said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-col-
oured in the moonlight. "Didn't I know it! But how
little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in
my station, Master Copperfield ! Father and me was both
brought up at a foundation school for boys ; and mother,
she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable,
establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness —
not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We
was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to
pull off our caps here, and to make bows there ; and always
to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters
Ajid we had such a lot of betters ! Father got the monitor=
medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sex-
ton fry being umble. He had the character, among the
gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they
were determined to bring him in. 'Be umble, Uriah,'
says father to me, ' and you'll get on. It was what was
aiw?/vs being dinned into you and me at school; it's what
goes down best. Be umble,' says father, ' and you'll do!'
And really it ain't done bad ! "

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this

576 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

detestable cant of false humility might have originated out
of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never
thought of the seed.

"When I was quite a young boy," said Uriah, "I got to
know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble
pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my
learning, and says I, ' Hold hard ! ' When you offered to
teach me Latin, I knew better. ' People like to be above
you,' says father, ' keep yourself down.' I am very umble
to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a
little power ! "

And he said all this — I knew, as I saw his face in the
moonlight — that I might understand he was resolved to
recompense himself by using his power. I had nesrer
doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I fully
comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unre-
lenting, and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered
by this early, and this long suppression.

His account of himself was so far attended with an agree-
able result, that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order
that he might have another hug of himself under the chin.
Once apart from him, I was determined to keep apart ; and
we walked back, side by side, saying very little more by
the way.

Whether his spirits were elevated by the communication
I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this retro-
spect, I don't know ; but they were raised by some influ-
ence. He talked more at dinner than was usual with him ;
asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-
entering the house), whether he was not growing too old
for a bachelor ; and once looked at Agnes so, that I would
have given all I had, for leave to knock him down.

When we three males were left alone after dinner, he
got into a more adventurous state. He had taken little or
no wine ; and I presume it was the mere insolence of tri
umph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the tempta-
tion my presence furnished to its exhibition.

I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr.
Wickfield to drink ; and, interpreting the look which Agnes
had given me as she went out, had limited myself to one
glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. I
would have done so again to-day ; but Uriah was too quick
for me

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 577

" We seldom see our present visitor, Sir," he said, address-
ing Mr Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the
end of the table, "and I should propose to give him wel-
come in another glass or two of wine, if you have no objec-
tions. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and appiness!"

I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he
stretched across to me; and then, with very different
emotions, I took the hand of the broken gentleman, his
partner.

u Come, fellow-partner," said Uriah, " if I may take the
liberty, —now, suppose you give us something or another
appropriate to Copperfield ! "

I pass over Mr. Wickfield' s proposing my aunt, his pro-
posing Mr. Dick, his proposing Doctors'* Commons, his
proposing Uriah, his drinking everything twice; his con-
sciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort that
he made against it; the struggle between his shame in
Uriah's deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the
manifest exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned,
and held him up before me. It made me sick at heart to
see, and my hand recoils from writing it.

"Come, fellow-partner! " said Uriah, at last, "I'll give
you another one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I
intend to make it the divinest of her sex."

Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw
him set it down, look at the picture she was so like, put
his hand to his forehead, and shrink back in his elbow-
chair.

"I'm an umble individual to give you her elth," pro-
ceeded Uriah, "but I admire — adore her."

No physical pain that her father's grey head could have
borne, I "think could have been more terrible to me, than
the mental endurance I saw compressed now within both
his hands.

" Agnes," said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not
knowing what the nature of his action was, " Agnes Wick-
field is, I am safe to say, the divinest of her sex. May I
speak out, among friends? To be her father is a proud
distinction, but to be her husband "

Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as tiM
with which her father rose up from the table !

"What's the matter?" said Uriah, turning of a deadly
colour "You are not gone rr.ad. after all. Mr, Wickfield,
37

578 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

I hope? If I say, I've an ambition, to make your Agnes
my Agnes, I have as good a right to it as another man. I
have a better right to it than any other man ! "

I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by
everything that I could think of, oftenest of all by his love
for Agnes, to calm himself a little. He was mad for the
moment ; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to
force me from him, and to force himself from me, not
answering a word, not looking at or seeing any one ; blindly
striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and dis-
torted— a frightful spectacle.

I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impas-
sioned manner, not to abandon himself to this wildness*
but to hear me. I besought him to think of Agnes, to
connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I had
grown up together, how I honoured her and loved her, how
she was his pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before
him in any form ; I even reproached him with not having
firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this.
I may have effected something, or his wildness may have
spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began
to look at me — strangely at first, then with recognition in
his eyes. At length he said, "I know, Trotwood! My
darling child and you — I know ! But look at him ! "

He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner,
evidently very much out in his calculations, and taken by
surprise.

"Look at my torturer," he replied. " Before him I have
step by step abandoned name and reputation, peace and
quiet, house and home."

" I have kept your name and reputation for you, and
your peace and quiet, and your house and home too," said
Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, defeated air of compromise.
"Don't be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I have gone a little
beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I sup-
pose? There's no harm done."

u I looked for single motives in every one," said Mr.
Wickfield, " and I was satisfied I had bound him to me
by motives of interest. But see what he is —oh, see what
he is!"

"You had better stop him, Copperfieid, it you can,"
cried Uriah, with his long forefinger pointing towards
me, "He'll say something presently -mind you!— he'!1.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 579

be sorry to have said afterwards, and you'll be sorry to
have heard ! "

" I'll say anything! " cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desper-
ate air. " Why should I not be in all the world's power if
I am in yours ! "

" Mind ! I tell you ! " said Uriah, continuing to warn
me. ' If you don't stop his mouth, you're not his friend!
Why shouldn't you be in all the world's power, Mr. Wick-
field? Because you have got a daughter. You and me
know what we know, don't we? Let sleeping dogs lie — ■
who wants to rouse 'em? I don't. Can't you see I am as
umble as I can be? I tell you, if I've gone too far, I'm
sorry. What would you have, Sir? "

" Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood ! " exclaimed Mr. Wickfield,
wringing his hands. "What I have come down to be,
since I first saw you in this house ! I was on my down-
ward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have tra-
versed since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indul-
gence in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfubiess.
My natural grief for my child's mother turned to disease;
my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have
infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on
what I dearly love, I know — you know! I thought it pos-
sible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and
not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly
mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have
some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the les-
sons of my life have been perverted ! I have preyed on my
own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sor-
did in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable
escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am,
and hate me, shun me ! "

He dropped into a <mair, and weakly sobbed. The ex-
citement into which be had been roused was leaving him.
Uriah came out of Ms corner.

"I don't know all I have done, in my fatuity/"' said Mr
Wickfield, putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my con-
demnation. " Re knows best," meaning Uriah Heep. " for
he has always been at my elbow, whispering me. You see
the millstone that he is about my neck. You find him in
my house, you find him in my business. You heard him,
but a littlp t-ivoo ago. What need iiave I to say more? "
* Yon haven't need to sav so much, nor half so much.

580 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

nor anything at all," observed Uriah, half defiant, and
half fawning. "You wouldn't have took it up so, if it
hadn't been for the wine. You'll think better of it to-mor-
row, Sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant,
what of it? I haven't stood by it! "

The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a ves-
jige of colour in her face, put her arm round his neck, and
steadily said, " Papa, you are not well. Come with me ! "
tie laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed
with heavy shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met
mine for but an instant, yet I saw how much she knew of
what had passed.

"I didn't expect he'd cut up so rough, Master Copper-
field," said Uriah. "But it's nothing. I'll be friends with
him to-morrow. It's for his good. I'm umbly anxious for
his good."

I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet
room where Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books.
Nobody came near me until late at night. I took up a
book and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike twelve,
and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when
Agnes touched me.

"You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood,
Let us say good-bye, now ! "

She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and
beautiful !

" Heaven bless you ! " she said, giving me her hand.

" Dearest Agnes ! " I returned, " I see you ask me not to
speak of to-night— but is there nothing to be done? "

" There is God to trust in ! " she replied.

"Can / do nothing — I, who come to you with my poor
sorrows? "

" And make mine so much lighter," she replied. " Dear
Trotwood, no ! "

" Dear Agnes," I said, " it is presumptuous for me, who
am so poor in all in which you are so rich— goodness, reso-
lution, all noble qualities— to doubt or direct you ; but you
know how much I love you, and how much I owe you.
You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of
duty, Agnes? "

More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her,
she took her hand from me, and moved a step back.

"Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 581

more than sister! Think of the priceless gift of such a

art as yours, of such a love as yours! "

Oh ! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before
me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing,
not regretting. Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look
subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which
she told me she had no fear for herself — I need have none
for her — and parted from me by the name of Brother, and
was gone!

It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coacL
at the inn door. The day was just breaking when we were
about to start, and then, as I sat thinking of her, came
struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and
night, Uriah's head.

'•Copperfield!" said he, in a croaking whisper as he
hung by the iron on the roof, "I thought you'd be glad to
hear before you went off, that there are no squares broke
between us. I've been into his room already, and we've
made it all smooth. Why, though I'm umble, I'm useful
to him, you know ; and he understands his interest when
he isn't in liquor! What an agreeable man he is, after all,
Master Copperfield ! "

I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his
apology.

" Oh, to be sure ! " said Uriah. " "When a person's
umble, you know, what's an apology? So easy! I say!
I suppose," with a jerk, "you have sometimes plucked a
pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield? "

u I suppose I have," I replied.

'/ did that last night," said Uriah; "but it'll ripe»
yet! It only wants attending to. I can wait! "

Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coach-
man got up. For anything I know, he was eating some-
thing to keep the raw morning air out; but, he made mo-
tions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and
he were smacking his lips over i&

582 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER ku

THE WANDERER

We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham
Street that night, about the domestic occurrences I have
detailed in the last chapter. My aunt was deeply inter-
ested in them, and walked up and down the room with her
arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. When-
ever she was particularly discomposed, she always per-
formed one of these pedestrian feats ; and the amount of
her discomposure might always be estimated by the dura-
tion of her walk. On this occasion she was so much dis-
turbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bedroom
door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full
extent of the bedrooms from wall to wall; and while Mr.
Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing in and
out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with
the regularity of a clock pendulum.

When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick's
going out to bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two
old ladies. By that time she was tired of walking, and sat
by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual. But instead
of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon her
knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-
piece; and, resting her left elbow on her right arm, and
her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at me. As
often as I raised my eyes from Avhat I was about, I met hers.
u I am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear," she would as-
sure me with a nod, "but I am fidgetted and sorry! "

I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone
to bed, that she had left her night-mixture, as she always
called it, untasted on the chimney-piece. She came to her
door, with even more than her usual affection of manner,
when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery ; but
only said, " I have not the heart to take it, Trot, to-night, "
and shook her head, and went in again.

She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning,
and approved of it. I posted it, and had nothing to. do
then, but wait, as patiently as I could, for the reply. I

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 583

was still in this state of expectation, and had been, for
nearly a week; svhen 1 left the Doctor's one snowy night,
to walk home

It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north- east wind
had blown for some time. The wind had gone down with
the light, and so the snow had come on. It was a heavy,
settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes ; and it lay thick.
The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as
if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers.

My shortest way home, — and I naturally took the short-
est way on such a night— was through Saint Martin's Lane
Now, the church which gives its name to the lane, stood in
a less free situation at that time ; there being no open space
before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand. As I
passed the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the corner
a woman's face. It looked in mine, passed across the nar-
row lane, and disappeared. I knew it. I had seen it some-
where. But I could not remember where. I had some
association with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but
I was thinking of anything else when it came upon me, and
was confused.

On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure
of a man, who had put down some burden on the smooth
snow, to adjust it; my seeing the face, and my seeing him,
were simultaneous. I don't think I had stopped in my
surprise ; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned,
and came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr.
Peggotty!

Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to
whom Emily had given the money that night in the kitch-
en. Martha Endell — side by side with whom, he would not
have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the
treasures wrecked in the sea.

We shook hands heartily. At iirst, neither ot us could
speak a word.

" Mas'r Davy I " he said, gripping me tight. ** u do my
art good to see you, Sir Well met, well met! "

" W«»P. met, my dear old friend ! " said 1.

" [ had my thow^s o' coming to make inqniration for
you. Sir, to-nignV' i*e said, "but knowing as your aunt
was living along wi' you — for I've been down yonder —
Yarmouth way— I was afeerd it was too late. I should
have come early in the morning, Sir, afore going away."

584 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Again?" said I.

"Yes, Sir," he replied, patiently shaking his head, "I'm
away to-morrow."

"Where were yon going now?" I asked.

"Well!" he replied, shaking the snow out of his iong
hair, "I was a going to turn in somewheers."

In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-
yard of the Golden Cross, the inn so memorable to me in
connexion with his misfortune, nearly opposite to where we
stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through
his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened
out of the stable -yard; and looking into one of them, and
finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in
there,

When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that
his hair was long and ragged, but that his face was burnt
dark by the sun. He was greyer, the lines in his face and
forehead were deepei, and he had every appearance of hav-
ing toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather,
but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by stead-
fastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He
shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it
away from his face, while I was inwardly making these
remarks. As he sat down opposite to me at a table, with
his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out
his rough hand again, and grasped mine warmly.

"I'll tell yon, Mas'r Davy," he said, — " wheer all I've
been, and what all we've heerd. I've been fur, and we've
heerd little; but I'll tell you ! "

I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would
have nothing stronger than ale; and while it was being
brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat thinking.
There was a fine massive gravity in his face, I did not
venture to disturb.

"When she was a child," he said, lifting up his head
soon after we were left alone, "she used to talk to me a
deal about the sea, and about them coasts where the sea
got to be dark blue, and to lay a shining and a shining in
the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded
made her think on it so much. I doen't know, you see,
but may be she Relieved — or hoped — he had drifted out to
them parts, where the flowers is always a blowing, and the
country bright."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 585

" It is likelv to have been a childish fancy," I replied.
"When she was—lost/' said Mr. Peggotty, "I know'd
in my mind, as be would take her to them countries. I
know'd in my mind, as he'd have told her wonders of 'em,
and how she "was to be a lady theer, and how he got her
listen to him fast, along o' sech like. When we see his
mother, 1 know'd quite well as I was right. I went across-
Channel to France, and landed theer, as if I'd fell down
from the sky "

I saw the door move, and the snow drift in I saw it
move a little more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it
open.

" ; found out a English gentleman as was in authority,"
said Mr. Peggotty, "and told him I was a going to seek
my niece. He got me them papers as I wanted fur to
carry me through— I doen't rightly know how they're
called— and he would have give me money, but that I was
thankful to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all
he done, I'm sure! ' I've wrote afore you,' he says to me,
; and I shall speak to many as will come that way, and
many will know you, fur distant from here, when you're a
cravelling alone.' I told him, best as I was able, what my
gratitoode was, and went away through France."
"Alone, and on foot?" said I.

"Mostly afoot," he rejoined; "sometimes in carts along
with people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches.
Many mile a day afoot, and often with some poor soldier
or another, travelling to see his friends. I couldn't talk
to him," said Mr. Peggotty, "nor he to me; but we was
company for one another, too, along the dusty roads."
I should have known that by his friendly tone.
" When I come to any town," he pursued, " I found the
:nn, and waited about the yard till some one turned up
<;soine one mostly did) as know-' d English. Then I told how
that I was on my way to seek my niece, and they told me
what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited
to see any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it
warn't Em'ly, I went on agen. By little and little, when
I come to a new village or that, among the poor people, I
found they know'd about me. They would set me down
at their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and
drink, and show me where to sleep ; and many a woman,
Mas'r Davy, as has had a daughter of about Em'ly 's age,

586 PERSONAL HISTOKY AND EXPERIENCE

I've found a waiting for me, at Our Saviour's .Cross outsidy
the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. Some lias
had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how
good them mothers was to me ! "

It was Martha at the door. \ saw her haggard, listen-
ing face distinctly. My dread was lest he should turn hife
head, and see her too.

" They would often put their children — partic'lar their
little girls," said Mr. Peggotty, "upon my knee; and many
a time you might have seen me sitting at their doors, when
night was coming on, a'niost as if they'd been my darling's
children. Oh, my darling ! "

Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid
my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his
face. "Thank'ee, Sir," he said, "doen't take no notice."

In a very little while he took his hand away and put it
on his breast, and went on with his story.

" They often walked with me," he said, "in the morn-
ing, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we
parted, and I said, * I'm very thankful to you ! God bless
you ! ' they always seemed to understand, and answered
pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn't hard, you
may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way
over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had
done afore. The people was just as good to me, and I
should have gone from town to town, maybe the country
through, but that I got news of her being seen among
them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know'd his ser-
vant see 'em there, all three, and told me how they trav-
elled, and where they was. I made for them mountains,
Mas'r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I w^nt,
ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me.
But I come up with 'em, and I crossed 'em. When I
got nigh the place as I had been told of, I began tc
think within my own self t ' What shall I do when I see
her? ! "

The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still
drooped at the door, and the hands begged me — prayed me
— not to cast it forth,

"I never doubted her," said Mr. Peggotty. "No! Not
a bit! On'y let her see my face — on 'y let her heer my
voice— on y let my stanning still afore her bring to her
thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the child

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 587

she had been — and if she had growed to be a royal lady,
she'd have fell down at my feet! I know'd it well. Many
a time in my sleep had I heerd her cry out, 'Uncle! ' and
seen her fall like death afore me. Many a time in my
sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, • Eni'iy,
my dear, I am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take
you home ! ' "

He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a
sigh.

"He was nowt to me now. Em'ly was all. I bought a
jountry dress to put upon her; and I know 'd that, once
found, she would walk beside me over them stony roads,
go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To
put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore — to
take her on my arm again, and wander towards home — tc
stop sometimes upon the road, and heal her bruised feet
and her worse-bruised heart — was all that I thowt of bow.
I doen't believe I should have done so much as look at
him. But, Mas'r Davy, it warn't to be — not yet! 1 wa3
too late, and they was gone. Wkeer, I couldn't learn.
Some said heer, some said theer. I travelled heer, and I
travelled theer, but I found no Em'ly, and I travelled
home."

" How long ago? " T asked.

"A matter o' fower days," said Mr. Peggotty. "1
sighted the old boat arter dark, and the light a shining in
the winder. When I come nigh and looked in through the
glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis Gummidge sittin' by
the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, ' Doen't
be afeerd! It's Dan'l!' and I went in. I never could
have thowt the old boat would have been so strange I "

From some pocket in his breast he took out, with a very
careful hand, a small paper bundle containing two or three
.ebters or little packets, which he laid upon the table.

"This fust one come," he said, selecting it from the rest,
u afore t had been gone a week. A fifty pound bank-note,
■ii a sheet of paper, directed to me, and put underneath the
door in the night. She tried to hide her writing, but she
couldn't hide it from Me ! "

Fe folded up the note again, with great patience and
care in exactly the same form, and laid it on one side.

"This come to Missis Gummidge," he said, opening an-
other, "two or three months ago/' After looking at it for

588 PERSONM* HISTORY. AND EXPERIENCE

some moments, he gave it to me, and added in a low voice,
" Be so good as read it, Sir. "
I read as follows ;

" Oh, what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it
monies from my wicked hand ! But try, try — not for my sake, but
for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me," only for a
little little time! Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl,
and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he
said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves
— and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home,
you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so
dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it ! I am kneel-
ing down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with
me as I deserve — as I well, well know I deserve — but to be so gentle
and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to
me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name
I have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on
me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen
in this world by my eyes again !

"Dear, if your heart is hard towards me— justly hard, 1 know —
but, Listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most —
him whose wife I was to have been — before you quite decide against
my poor poor prayer ! If he should be so compassionate as to say
that you might write something for me to read — I think he would,
oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always
was so brave and so forgiving — tell him then (but not else), that
when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it was passing
angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to God against
me. Tell him that if I was to die to-morrow (and oh, if I was fit, I
would be so glad to die !) I would bless him and uncle with my last
words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath! "

Some money was enclosed in this letter also. Five
pounds. It was untouched like the previous sum, and he
refolded it in the same way. Detailed instructions were
added relative to the address of a reply, which, although
they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made
it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in ref-
erence to her place of concealment, made it at least not
unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was
stated to have been seen.

" What answer was sent? " I inquired of Mr. Peggotty.

"Missis Gummidge," he returned, "not being a good
scholar, Sir, Ham kindly drawed it out, and she made a
copy on it. They told her I was gone to seek her, and
what my parting words was."

" Is that another letter in your hand? n said I.

"It's money, Sir," said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 589

little way. "Ten pound, you see. And wrote inside,
1 From a true friend,' like the fust. But the fust was put
underneath the door, and this come by the post, day afore
yesterday. I'm a going to seek her at the post-mark."

He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Khine.
He had found out, at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who
knew that country, and they had drawn him a rude map on
paper, which he could very well understand. He laid it
between us on the table ; and, with his chin resting on one
hand, tracked his course upon it with the other.

I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head.

*;He works," he said, "as bold as a man can. His
name's as good, in all that part, as any man's is, anywheres
in the wureld. Anyone's hand is ready to help him, you
understand, and his is ready to help them. He's never
been heerd fur to complaiu. But my sister's belief is
('twixt ourselves) as it has cut him deep."

" Poor fellow, I can believe it ! "

"He ain't no care, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty in a
solemn whisper — "keinder no care no-how for his life.
When a man's wanted for rough sarvice in rough weather,
he's theer. When there's hard duty to be done with dan-
ger in it, he steps for'ard afore all his mates. And yet
he's as gentle as any child. There ain't a child in Yar-
mouth that doen't know him."

He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them
with his hand ; put them into their little bundle ; and placed
it tenderly in his breast again. The face was gone from
the door. I still saw the snow drifting in ; but nothing
else was there.

" Well! " he said, looking to his bag, "having seen you
to-night, Mas'r Davy (and that doosme good!) I shall away
betimes to-morrow morning. You have seen what I've
got heer ; " putting his hand on where the little packet lay ;
" all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might
come to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to
die, and it was lost, or stole, or elseways made away with,
and it was never kncw'd by him but what I'd took it, I
believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold me! I believe I
must come back! "

He rose, and I rose too ; we grasped each other by the
hand again, before going out,

"I'd go ten thousand mile," he said. "I'd go till I

590 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him. If I do
that, and find my Era'ly, I'm content. If I doen't find
her, maybe she'll come to hear, sometime, as her loving
uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life ;
and if I know her, even that will turn her home at last ! "

As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely
figure flit away before us. I turned him hastily on seme
pretence, and held him in conversation until it was gone.

He spoke of a travellers' house on the Dover road, where
he knew he could find a clean, plain lodging for the night.
I went with him over Westminster Bridge, and parted from
him on the Surrey shore. Everything seemed, to my im-
agination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he resumed
his solitary journey through the snow.

I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remem-
brance of the face, looked awfully around for it. It was
not there. The snow had covered our late footprints ; my
new track was the only one to be seen ; and even that began
to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back over my
shoulder.

CHAPTER XL!

DORA'S AUNTS

' At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They
presented their compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and in-
formed him that they had given his letter their best con-
sideration, " with a view to the happiness of both parties "
— which I thought rather an alarming expression, not only
because of the use they had made of it in relation to the
family difference before-mentioned, but because I had (and
have all my life) observed that conventional phrases are a
sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great
variety of shapes and colours not at all suggested by their
original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they begged
to forbear expressing, " through the medium of correspond-
ence," an opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield's com
munication ; but that if Mr. Copperfield would do them the
favour to call, upon a certain day (accompanied, if he
thought proper, by a confidential friend), they would be
nappy to hold some conversation on the subject.

OF DAY1D COPPERFIELD.

591

To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied,
with his respectful compliments, that he would have the
honour of waiting on the Misses Spenlow, at the time ap-
pointed; accompanied, in accordance with their kind per-
mission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner
Temple. Having despatched which missive, Mr. Copper-
field fell into a condition of strong nervous agitation ; and
so remained until the day arrived.

It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be
bereaved, at this eventful crisis, of the inestimable services
of Miss Mills. But Mr. Mills, who was always doing
something or other to annoy me— or I felt as if he were,
which was the same thing— had brought his conduct to a
climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India.
Why should he go to India, except to harass me? To be
sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world,
and had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely
m the India trade, whatever that was (I had floating dreams
myself concerning golden shawls and elephants' teeth);
having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing now
to fro out there again, in the capacity of resident partner.
But this was nothing to me. However, it was so much to
him that for India he was bound, and Julia with him; and
Julia went into the country to take leave of her relations ;
and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announc-
ing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture
(Mangle and all) was to be taken at a valuation. So, here
was another earthquake of which I became the sport, before
I had recovered from the shock of its predecessor!

T was in several minds how to dress myself on the im-
portant dav; being divided between my desire to appear
to advantage, and my apprehensions of putting on anything
that might impair my severely practical character in the
eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy
medium between these two extremes ; my aunt approved
the result ; and Mr. Dick threw one of his shoes after Trad-
dles and me, for luck, as we went down-stairs.

Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly
attached to him as I was, I could not help wishing, on that
delicate occasion, that he had never contracted the habit ot
brushing his hair so very upright. It gave him a surprised
look— not to say a hearth-broomy kind of expression-
which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us.

592 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we
were walking to Putney; and saying that if he would
smooth it down a little

" My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, lifting off his hat
and rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, " nothing would give
me greater pleasure. But it won't."

" Won't be smoothed down? " said I.

"No," said Traddles. "Nothing will induce it. If I
was to carry a half -hundredweight upon it, all the way to
Putney, it would be up again the moment the weight was
taken off. You have no idea what obstinate hair mine is,
Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine."

I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly
charmed by his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed
his good-nature ; and said that his hair must have taken all
the obstinacy out of his character, for he had none.

M Oh ! " returned Traddles, laughing, " I assure you, it's
quite an old story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle's wife
couldn't bear it. She said it exasperated her. It stood
very much in my way, too, when I first fell in love with
Sophy. Very much ! "

"Did she object to it?"

" She didn't," rejoined Traddles; "but her eldest sister
— the one that's the Beauty — quite made game of it, I
understand. In fact, all the sisters laugh at it."

" Agreeable ! " said I.

"Yes," returned Traddles with perfect iunocence, "it's
a joke for us. They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in
her desk, and is obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep
it down. We laugh about it."

" By-the-bye, my dear Traddles," said I, " your experience
may suggest something to me. When you became engaged
to the young lady whom you have just mentioned, did you
make a regular proposal to her family? Was there anything
like — what we are going through to-day, for instance? " I
added, nervously.

"Why," replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a
thoughtful shade had stolen, "it was rather a painful trans-
action, Copperfield, in my case. You see, Sophy being of
so much use in the family, none of them could endure the
thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite
settled among themselves that she never was to be married,
and they called her the old maid. Accordingly y when

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 593

L mentioned it, with the greatest precaution, to Mrs.
Crewler "

" The mama? " said I.

" The mama," said Traddles— " "Reverend Horace Crewler
— when I mentioned it with every possible precaution to
Mrs. Crewler, the effect upon her was such that she gave a
scream and became insensible. I couldn't approach the
subject again, for months."

" You did at last? " said I.

- Well, the Reverend Horace did," said Traddles. " He
is an excellent man, most exemplary in every way ; and he
pointed out to her that she ought, as a Christian, to recon-
cile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it was so uncer-
tain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As
to myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect
bird of prey towards the family."

"The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles? "

" Why, I can't say they did," he returned. " When we
had comparatively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had
to break it to Sarah. You recollect my mentioning Sarah,
as the one that has something the matter with her spine? "

"Perfectly!"

"She clenched both her hands," said Traddles, looking
at me in dismay ; " shut her eyes; turned lead-colour; be-
came perfectly stiff ; and took nothing for two days but
toast-and- water, administered with a teaspoon."

u What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles ! " I remarked.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!" said Traddles.
" She is a very charming girl, but she has a great deal of
feeling. In fact, they all have . Sophy told me afterwards,
that the self-reproach she underwent while she was in at-
tendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I know it
must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield ;
which were like a criminal's. After Sarah was restored,
we still had to break it to the other eight; and it produced
various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature, The
two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only just left
off de -testing me."

"At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope? "
said I.

" Ye— yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned
to it," said Traddles, doubtfully "The fact is, we avoid
mentioning the subject; and my unsettled prospects and
38

594 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

indifferent circumstances are a great consolation to them
There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are married.
It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And
they'll all hate me for taking her away ! "

His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic
shake of his head; impresses me more in the remembrance
than it did in the reality, for I was by this time in a state
of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to
be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. On our
approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I
was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and
presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant
in the form of a glass of ale. This having been adminis-
tered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with
tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlows' door.

I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view,
when the maid opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across
a hall with a weather-glass in it, into a quiet little drawing-
room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. Also
of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles' s hair
start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtru-
sive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious
snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also of hearing an
old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and
trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart, —
which it wouldn't. Also of looking round the room for
any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that
Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked
by somebody. Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles
into the fireplace, and bowing in great confusion to two dry
little elderly ladies, dressed in black, and each looking
wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late
Mr. Spenlow.

"Pray," said one of the ;wo little ladies, "be seated."

When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat
upon something which was not a cat — my first seat was — I
so far recovered my sight, as to perceive that Mr. Spenlow
had evidently been the youngest of the family ; that there
was a disparity of six or eight years between the two sisters ;
and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the
conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand — so
familiar as 'it looked to me, and yet so odd! — and was re-
ferring to it through an eye-glass. They were dressed

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 595

alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful
air thau the other ; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or
tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that
kind, which made her look more lively. They were both
upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and
quiet. The sister who had not my letter, had her arms
crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like an
Idol.

• Mr. Copperfield, I believe,'-' said the sister who had got
my letter, addressing herself to Traddles.

This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate
that I was Mr. Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to my-
self, and they had to divest themselves of a preconceived
opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield, and altogether
we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all dis-
tinctly heard Jip give two short barks, and receive another
choke.

" Mr. Copperfield! " said the sister with the letter.

I did something— bowed, I suppose— and was all atten-
tion, when the other sister struck in.

" My sister Lavinia," said she, " being conversant with
matters of this nature, will state what we consider most
calculated to promote the happiness of both parties."

I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an author-
ity in affairs of the heart, by reason of there having an-
ciently existed a certain Mr. Pidger, who played short
whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her.
My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous
assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any
such sentiments— to which he had never given any sort of
expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia
and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he
would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut
short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his
constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again
by swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion
even, that he died of secret love ; though I must say there
was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose,
which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon

"We will not," said Miss Lavinia, "enter on the past
history of this matter. Our poor brother Francis's death
has cancelled that."

" We had not," said Miss Clarissa, "been in the habit of

596 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

frequent association with our brother Francis; but there
was no decided division or disunion between us. Francis
took his road ; we took ours. We considered it conducive
to the happiness of all parties that it should be so. And
it was so."

Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak,
shook her head after speaking, and became upright again
when silent. Miss Clarissa never moved her arms. She
sometimes played tunes upon them with her fingers — min-
uets and marches, I should think — but never moved them.

"Our niece's position, or supposed position, is much
changed by our brother Francis's death," said Miss La-
vinia; "and therefore we consider our brother's opinions
as regarded her position as being changed too. We have
no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young
gentleman possessed of good qualities and honourable char-
acter ; or that you have an affection — or are fully persuaded
that you have an affection — for our niece."

I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that
nobody had ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora.
Traddles came to my assistance with a confirmatory mur-
mur.

Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder?
when Miss Clarissa, who appeared to be incessantly beset
by a desire to refer to her brother Francis, struck in again :

"If Dora's mamma," she said, "when she married our
brother Francis, had at once said that there was not room
for the family at the dinner-table, it would have been
better for the happiness of all parties."

"Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia. "Perhaps we
needn't mind that now."

"Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, "it belongs to the
subject. With your branch of the subject, on which alone
you are competent to speak, I should not think of interfer-
ing. On this branch of the subject I have a voice and an
opinion. It would have been better for the happiness of
all parties, if Dora's mamma, when she married our brother
Francis, had mentioned plainly what her intentions were.
We should then have known what we had to expect. We
should have said ' pray do not invite us, at any time ; '
and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been
avoided."

When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 597

resumed: again referring to my letter through her eye-
glass. They both had little bright round twinkling eyes,
by the way, which were like birds' eyes. They were not
unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden
maimer, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting them-
selves, like canaries.

Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed :

'" You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and my-
self, Mr. Copperfield, to visit here, as the accepted suitor
of our niece."

61 If our brother Francis," said Miss Clarissa, breaking
out again, if I may call anything so calm a breaking out5
ft wished to surround himself with an atmosphere of Doc-
tors' Commons, and of Doctors' Commons only, what right
or desire had we to object? Xone, I am sure. We have
ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on anyone
But why not say so? Let our brother Francis and his wife
have their society. Let my sister Lavinia and myself have
our society. TVe can find it for ourselves, I hope ! "

As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me,
both Traddles and I made some sort of reply. Traddles
was inaudible. I think I observed, myself, that it was
highly creditable to all concerned. I don't in the least
know what I meant.

u Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved
her mind, "you can go on, my dear."

Miss Lavinia proceeded :

"' Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been
very careful indeed in considering this letter ; and we have
not considered it without finally showing it to our niece,
and discussing it with our niece. We have no doubt that
you think you like her very much."

"Think, ma'am," I rapturously began, "oh !"

But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp
canary^, as requesting that I would not interrupt the
oracle, I begged pardon.

''Affection," said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister
for corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little
nod to every clause, " mature affection, homage, devotion,
does not easily express itself. Its voice is low. It is
modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits
Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away,
and finds it still ripening in the shade."

598 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Of course I did not understand then that this was an
allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken Pidger j
but I saw, from the gravity with which Miss Clarissa nod-
ded her head, that great weight was attached to these words.

"The light— for I call them, in comparison with such
sentiments, the light — inclinations of very young people,"
pursued Miss Lavinia, " are dust, compared to rocks. It is
owing to the difficulty of knowing whether they are likely
to endure or have any real foundation, that my sister Cla-
rissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, Mr
Copperfield, and Mr. "

" Traddles," said my friend, finding himself looked at.

"I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?" said
Miss Lavinia, again glancing at my letter.

Traddles said "Exactly so," and became pretty red in
the face.

Now, although I had not received any express encour-
agement as yet, I fancied that I saw in the two little sis-
ters, and particularly in Miss Lavinia, an intensified enjoy-
ment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic interest,
a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition to pet
it, in which there was a good bright ray of hope. I thought
I perceived that Miss Lavinia would have uncommon satis-
faction in superintending two young lovers, like Dora and
me ; and that Miss Clarissa would have hardly less satis-
faction in seeing her superintend us, and in chiming in
with her own particular department of the subject when-
ever that impulse was strong upon her. This gave me
courage to protest most vehemently that I loved Dora bet-
ter than I could tell, or anyone believe ; that all my friends
knew how I loved her; that my aunt, Agnes, Traddles,
everyone who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how
earnest my love had made me. For the truth of this, I
appealed to Traddles. And Traddles, firing up as if he
were plunging into a Parliamentary Debate, really did come
out nobly: confirming me in good round terms, and in a
plain sensible practical manner, that evidently made a fa-
vourable impression.

" I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has
some little experience of such things," said Traddles, " being
myself engaged to a young lady — one of ten, down in Dev-
onshire— and seeing no probability, at present, of our en-
gagement coming to a termination."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 599

"You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr
Traddles," observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new-
interest in him, " of the affection that is modest and retir-
ing; that waits and waits?"

" Entirely, ma'am," said Traddles.

Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her
head gravely. Miss Lavinia looked consciously at Miss
Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh.

■• Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, "take my smelling-
bottle/'

Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aro-
matic vinegar — Traddles and I looking on with great solici-
tude the while ; and then went on to say, rather faintly :

" My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr.
Traddles, what course we ought to take in reference to the
likings, or imaginary likings, of such very young people as
your friend Mr. Copperfield and our niece."

••< kir brother Francis's child," remarked Miss Clarissa,
" If our brother Francis's wife h^d found it convenient in
her lifetime (though she had an unquestionable right to
act as she thought best) to invite the family to her din-
ner-table, we might have known our brother Francis's
child better at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, pro-
ceed."

Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the super-
scription towards herself, and referred through her eye-
glass to some orderly-looking notes she had made on that
part of it.

"It seems to us," said she, "prudent, Mr. Traddles, to
bring these feelings to the test of our own observation. At
present we know nothing of them, and are not in a situa-
tion to judge how much reality there may be in them.
Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr. Copper-
field's proposal, as to admit his visits here."

" I shall never, dear ladies," I exclaimed, relieved of an
immense load of apprehension, " forget your kindness ! "

"But," pursued Miss Lavinia, — "but, we would prefer
to regard those visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present,
to us. We must guard ourselves from recognising any pos-
itive engagement between Mr. Copperfield and our niece,
until we have had an opportunity "

"Until you have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia,"
said Miss Clarissa.

600 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Be it so," assented Miss Lavinia, with, a sigh — "until
I have had an opportunity of observing them."

"Copperfield," said Traddles, turning to me, "you feel,
I am sure, that nothing could be more reasonable or con-
siderate."

"Nothing! " cried I. "I am deeply sensible of it."

" In this position of affairs," said Miss Lavinia, again
referring to her notes, "and admitting his visits on this
understanding only, we must require from Mr. Copperfield
a distinct assurance, on his word of honour, that no com-
munication of any kind shall take place between him and
our niece without our knowledge. That no project what-
ever shall be entertained with regard to our niece, without
being first submitted to us "

"To you, sister Lavinia," Miss Clarissa interposed.

" Be it so, Clarissa ! " assented Miss Lavinia resignedly —
"to me— and receiving our concurrence. We must make
this a most express and serious stipulation, not to be broken
on any account. We wished Mr. Copperfield to be accom-
panied by some confidential friend to-day," with an incli-
nation of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, " in order
that there might be no doubt or misconception on this sub-
ject. If Mr. Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the
least scruple, in giving this promise, I beg you to take time
to consider it."

I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervour, that not
a moment's consideration could be necessary. I bound my-
self by the required promise, in a most impassioned manner ;
called upon Traddles to witness it; and denounced myself
as the most atrocious of characters if I ever swerved from it
in the least degree.

" Stay ! " said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand ; " we
resolved, before we had the pleasure of receiving you two
gentlemen, to leave you alone for a quarter of an hour, tc
consider this point. You will allow us to retire."

It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was
necessary. They persisted in withdrawing for the specified
time. Accordingly, these little birds hopped out with great
dignity ; leaving me to receive the congratulations of Trad-
dles, and to feel as if I were translated to regions of exqui-
site happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the quarter
of an hour, they reappeared with no less dignity than they
had disappeared. They had gone rustling away as if their

O* DAVID COPPERFIELD. 601

little dresses were made of autumn-leaves : and they came
rustling back, in like manner.

I then bound myself once more to the prescribed condi-
tions.

"Sister Clarissa." said Miss Lavinia, "the rest is with
you. "

Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took
the notes and glanced at them.

"We shall be happy," said Miss Clarissa, "to see Mr.
Copperfield to dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his
convenience. Our hour is three."

I bowed.

"In the course of the week," said Miss Clarissa, "we
shall be happy to see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is
half -past six."

I bowed again.

" Twice in the week," said Miss Clarissa, " but, as a rule,
not oftener."

I bowed again.

"Miss Trotwood," said Miss Clarissa, "mentioned in
Mr. Copperfield' s letter, will perhaps call upon us. When
visiting is better for the happiness of all parties, we are
glad to receive visits, and return them. When it is better
for the happiness of all parties that no visiting should take
place (as in the case of our brother Francis, and his estab-
lishment), that is quite different."

I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted
to make their acquaintance; though I must say I was
not quite sure of their getting on very satisfactorily to-
gether. The conditions being now closed, I expressed my
acknowledgments in the warmest manner ; and, taking the
hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia,
pressed it, in each case, to my lips.

Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles ic
excuse us for a minute, requested me to follow her. I
obeyed, all in a tremble, and was conducted into another
room. There, I found my blessed darling stopping her ears
behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall *,
and Jir> in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel.

Oh ! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how
she sobbed and cried at first, and wouldn't come out from
behind the door ! How fond we were of one another, when
she did come out at last; and what a state of bliss I wap

602 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

in, when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored
him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three
reunited !

u My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever! "

" Oh dox't ! " pleaded Dora. " Please ! "

" Are you not my own for ever, Dora? "

" Oh yes, of course I am ! " cried Dora, " but I am so
frightened! "

"Frightened, my own?"

J'Oh yes! I don't J:ke him," said Dora "Why don't
ae go?"

"Who, my life?"

" Your friend," said Dora, u It isn't any business of his.
What a stupid he must be."

" My love ! " (There never was anything so coaxing as
her childish ways.) "He is the best creature! "

"Oh, but we don't want any best creatures!" pouted
Dora.

"My dear," I argued, "you will soon know him well,
and like him of all things. And here is my aunt coming
soon; and you'll like her of all things too, when you know
her,"

"No, please don't bring her!" said Dora, giving me a
horrified little kiss, and folding her hands. "Don't. I
know she's a naughty, mischief -making old thing! Don't
let her come here, Doady ! " which was a corruption of
David.

Remonstrance was of no use, then ; so I laughed, and ad-
mired, and was very much in love and very happy; and
she showed me Jip's new trick of standing on his hind-
legs in a corner — which he did for about the space of a
flash of lightning, and then fell down — and I don't know
how long I should have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles,
if Miss Lavinia had not come in to take me away. Miss
Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told me Dora was ex-
actly like what she had been herself at her age— she must
have altered a good deal), and she treated Dora just as if
she had been a toy. I wanted to persuade Dora to come
and see Traddles, but on my proposing it she ran off to her
own room, and locked herself in ; so I went to Traddles
without her, and walked away with him on air.

"Nothing could be more satisfactory," said Traddles,*
"and they are very agreeable old ladies, I am sure, f

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 603

shouldn't be at all surprised if you were to be married
years before ine, Copperfield."

"Does your Sophy play on any instrument. Traddles?'
I inquired, in the pride of my heart.

" She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little
sisters," said Traddles.

"Does she sing at all?" I asked.

" Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to ireshen up the
others a little when they're out of spirits," said Traddles
"Nothing scientific."

"She doesn't sing to the guitar?*' said \

" Oh dear no! " said Traddles

"Paint at all?"

" Not at all," said Traddles

I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and
see some of her flower-painting. He said he should like
it very much, and we went home arm-in-arm in great good-
humour and delight. I encouraged him to talk about
Sophy, on the way; which he did with a loving reliance
on her that I very much admired. I compared her in my
mind with Dora, with considerable inward satisfaction;
but I candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be
an excellent kind of girl for Traddles, too.

Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted
with the successful issue of the conference, and with all
that had been said and done in the course of it. She was
happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on Dora's
aunts without loss of time. But she took such a long walk
up and down our rooms that night, while I was writing
to Agnes, that I began to think she meant to walk til]
morning.

My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, nar
rating ail the good effects that had resulted from my fol
lowing her advice. She wrote, by return of post, to me
Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful She was
always cheerful from that time.

I had my hands more full than ever, now My daily
journeys to Highgate considered, Putney was a long way
off ; and I naturally wanted to go there as often as I could.
The proposed tea-drinkings being quite impracticable, I
compounded t\ ith Miss Lavinia for permission to visit every
Saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged
Sundays So, the close of every week was a delicious timr

604 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

for me; and T got through the rest of the week by looking
forward to it.

I was wonderfully relieved to tind that my aunt and
Dora's aunts rubbed on, all things considered, much more
smoothly than I could have expected. My aunt made her
promised visit within a few days of the conference ; and
within a few more days, Dora's aunts called upon her, in
due state and form. Similar but more friendly ex3hanges
took place afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four
weeks. I know that my aunt distressed Dora's aunts very
much, by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly-con-
veyance, and walking out to Putney at extraordinary times,
as shortly after breakfast or just before tea ; likewise by
wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be
comfortable to her head, without at all deferring to the
prejudices of civilisation on that subject. But Dora's
aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and
somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding;
and although my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of
Dora's aunts, by expressing heretical opinions on various
points of ceremony, she loved me too well not to sacrifice
some of her little peculiarities to the general harmony.

The only member of our small society, who positively
refused to adapt himself to circumstances, was Jip. He
never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every
tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling
incessantly : with now and then a doleful howl, as if she
really were too much for his feelings. All kinds of treat-
ment were tried with him — coaxing, scolding, slapping,
bringing him to Buckingham Street (where he instantly
dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all beholders) ; but
he never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt's
society. He would sometimes think he had got the better
of his objection, and be amiable for a few minutes ; and
then would put up his snub nose, and howl to that extent,
that there was nothing for it but to blind him and put him
in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly muffled
him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt
was reported at the door.

One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into
this quiet train. It was, that Dora seemed by one consent
to be regarded like a pretty toy or plaything. My aunt,
with whom she gradually became familiar, always called

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 605

her little Blossom; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia's
life was to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments
for her, and treat her like a pet child. What Miss La-
vinia did, her sister did as a matter of course. It was
very odd to me ; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her
degree, much as Dora treated Jip in his.

I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this ; and
one day when we were out walking (for we were licensed
by Miss Lavinia, after a while, to go out walking by our-
selves), I said to her that I wished she could get them to
behave towards her differently.

"Because you know, my darling," I remonstrated, "you
are not a child."

" There ! * said Dora. " Now you're going to be cross ! "

"Cross, my love?"

" I am sure they're very kind to me," said Dora, " and I
am very happy."

"Well! But, my dearest life!" said I, "you might be
very happy, and yet be treated rationally."

Dora gave me a reproachful look — the prettiest look!
— aDd then began to sob, saying, if I didn't like her, why
had I ever wanted so much to be engaged to her? And
why didn't I go away now, if I couldn't bear her?

What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her
how I doted on her, after that !

"I am sure I am very affectionate," said Dora; "you
oughtn't to be cruel to me, Doady ! "

" Cruel, my precious love ! As if I would— or could-
be cruel to you, for the world ! "

" Then don't find fault with me," said Dora, making a
rosebud of her mouth; "and I'll be good."

I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own
accord, to give her that Cookery Book I had once spoken
of, and to show her how to keep accounts, as I had once
promised I would. I brought the volume with me on my
next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look
less dry and more inviting) ; and as we strolled about the
Common, I showed her an old housekeeping-book of my
aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and a pretty little
pencil-case, and box of leads, to practise housekeeping
with.

But the Cookery Book made Dora's head ache, and the
figures made her cry They wouldn't add up, she said

606 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

So she rubbed them out, and drew little nosegays, and
likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets.

Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic
matters, as we walked about on a Saturday afternoon.
Sometimes, for example, when we passed a butcher 's
shop, I would say :

" Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you
were going to buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner, would
you know how to buy it? "

My pretty little Dora's face would fall, and she would
make her mouth into a bud again, as if she would very
much prefer to shut mine with a kiss.

" Would you know how to buy it, my darling? " T would
repeat, perhaps, if I were very inflexible

Dora would think a little, aD d then reply, perhaps, with
great triumph :

" Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what
need /know? Oh, you silly boy! "

So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the Cookery
Book, what she would do, if we were married, and I were
to say I should like a nice Irish stew, she replied that she
would tell the servant to make it ; and then clapped her
little hands together across my arm, and laughed in sucK
a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever.

Consequently, the principal use to which the Cookery
Book was devoted, was being put down in the corner for
Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so pleased, when she
had trained him to stand upon it without offering to come
off, and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his
mouth, that I was very glad I had bought it.

And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-
painting, and the songs about never leaving off dancing,
Ta ra la ! and were as happy as the week was long. I occa-
sionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss Lavinia,
that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much
like a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it were,
wondering to find that I had fallen into the general fault}
and treated her like a plaything too — bu not often.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. &

CHAPTER XLII.

I feel as if it were not tor me to record, even though
Chis manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard
I worked at that tremendous shorthand, and all improve-
ment appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to
Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have al-
ready written of my perseverance at this time of my life,
and of a patient and continuous energy which then began
to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong
part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that
there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I
have been very fortunate in worldly matters ; many men
have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well;
but I never could have done what I have done, without the
habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the de-
termination to concentrate myself on one object at a time,
no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its
heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this,
in no spirit of self -laudation. The man who reviews his
own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page,
had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be
spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected,
many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted
feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating
him. I do not hold one natural gift, I daresay, that I have
not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have
tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well;
that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted
myself to completely ; that, in great aims and in small, I
have always been thoroughly in earnest, I have never be-
lieved it possible that any natural or improved ability can
claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain,
hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is
-no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy
talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two
sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the
rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear

<>08 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going,
ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to
anything, on which I could throw ray whole self ; and nevei
to affect depreciation of rny work, whatever it was ; I find,
now, to have been my golden rules.

How much of the practice I have just reduced to pre-
cept, I owe to Agnes, I will not repeat here My narrative
proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful love.

She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor's. Mr.
Wickfield was the Doctor's old friend, and the Doctoi
wished to talk with him, and do him good. It had been
matter of conversation with Agnes when she was last in
town, and this visit was the result. She and her father
came together. I was not much surprised to hear from her
that she had engaged to find a lodging in the neighbourhood
for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint required change
of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such com-
pany. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day,
Uriah, like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take
possession.

"You see, Master Copperfield," said he, as he forced
himself upon my company for a turn in the Doctor's garden,
"where a person loves, a person is a little jealous — least-
ways, anxious to keep an eye on the beloved one."

u Of whom are you jealous, now? " said I.

"Thanks to you, Master Copperfield," he returned, "of
no one in particular just at present — no male person, at
least."

"Do you mean that you are jealous of a female per-
son?"

He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes,
and laughed.

"Really, Master Copperfield," he said, " — I should say
Mister, but I know you'll excuse the abit I've got into —
you're so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew !
Well, I don't mind telling you," putting his fish-like hand
on mine, p I'm not a lady's man in general, Sir, and I never
was, with Mrs. Strong."

His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a
rascally cunning.

tk What do you mean? " said I.

" Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield," he re-
rjlied, with a dry grin, " I mean, just at present, what I say.'*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.

"And what do you mean by your look?" I retorted,
quietly.

"By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that's sharp
practice ! What do I mean by my look? "

" Yes," said I. " By your look."

He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily
as it was in his nature to laugh. After some scraping of
his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes
cast downward — still scraping, very slowly :

" When I was but a numble clerk, she always looked
down upon me. She was for ever having my Agnes back-
wards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being
a friend to you, Master Copperfield ; but I was too far be-
neath her, myself, to be noticed."

" Well? " said I ; " suppose you were ! "

"—And beneath him too," pursued Uriah, very dis-
tinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued
to scrape his chin.

"Don't you know the Doctor better," said I, "than to
suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were
not before him? "

He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again,
and he made his face very lantern- jawed, for the greater
convenience of scraping, as he answered :

" Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor ! Oh no, poor
man ! I mean Mr. Maldon ! "

My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts, and
apprehensions on that subject, all the Doctor's happiness
and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and
compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a moment,
at the mercy of this fellow's twisting.

" He never could come into the ^ince, without ordering
and shoving me about," said Uriah. "One of your fine
gentlemen he was ! I was very meek and umble— and I am
But I didn't like that sort of thing— and I don't! "

He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks
until they seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong
glance upon me all the while.

" She is one of your lovely women, she is," he pursued,

when he had slowly restored his face to its natural form ;

1 and ready to be no friend to such as me, / know. She's

just the person as would put my Agnes up to higher sort

of game. Now, I ain't onf of vour lady'« men, Master

39

610 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Copperfield ; but I've had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time
back. We unible ones have got eyes, mostly speaking—
and we look out of 'em."

I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted,
but, I saw in his face, with poor success.

" Now, I'm not a going to let myself be run down, Cop-
perfield," he continued, raising that part of his countenance
where hi a red eyebrows would have been if he had had any,
with malignant triumph, " and I shall do what I can to put
a stop to this friendship. I don't approve of it. I don't
mind acknowledging to you that I've got rather a grudging
disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain't a
going, if I know it, to run the risk of being plotted against. "

" f ou are always plotting, and delude yourself into the
belief that everybody else is doing the like, I think," said I.

'•Perhaps so, Master Copperfield," he replied. "But
I've got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I
go at it tooth and nail. I mustn't be put upon, as a num-
ble person, too much. I can't allow people in my way.
Keally they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield ! "

"I don't understand you," said I.

" Don't you, though? " he returned, with one of his jerks.
"I'm astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being
usually so quick! I'll try to be plainer, another time. — Is
that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the gate, Sir? "

"It looks like him," I replied, as carelessly as I could.
Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great
knobs of knees, and doubled himself up with laughter.
With perfectly silent laughter. Not a sound escaped from
him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particu-
larly by this concluding instance, that I turned away with-
out any ceremony ; and left him doubled up in the middle
of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support.

It was not on that evening ; but, as I well remember, on
the next eveuing but one, which was a Saturday; that I
took Agnes to see Dora. I had arranged the visit, before-
hand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was expected to
;ea.

I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety ; pride in my dear
.ittle betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her.
All the way to Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach,
ind I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in every one of
,he pretty looks I knew so well ; now making up my mind

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 611

that I should like her to look exactly as she looked at such
a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her
looking as she looked at such another time; and almost
worrying myself into a fever about it.

I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in
any case ; but it fell out that I had never seen her look so
well. She was not in the drawing-room when I presented
Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the
way. I knew where to look for her, now ; and sure enough
I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull
old door.

At first she wouldn't come at all; and then she pleaded
for five minutes by my watch. When at length she put
her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room,
her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so
pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned
pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet.

Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she
knew Agnes was "too clever." But when she saw her
looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, and so thought-
ful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased sur-
prise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes' s
neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face.

I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when
I saw those two sit down together, side by side. As when
I saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those
cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful regard
which Agnes cast upon her.

Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way,
of my joy. It was the pleasantest tea-table in the
world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut and handed the
sweet seed-cake — the little sisters had a birdlike fondness
for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar ; Miss Lavinia
looked on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love
were all her work ; and we were perfectly contented with
ourselves and one another.

The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts
Her quiet interest in everything that interested Dora ; her
manner of making acquaintance with Jip (who responded
instantly) ; her pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to
come over to her usual seat by me ; her modest grace and
ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence
from Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete.

oj2 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"I am so glad," said Dora, after tea, "that you like nie.
I didn't think you would; and I want, more than ever, to
be liked, now Julia Mills is gone."

I have omitted to mention it, by-the-bye. Miss Mills
had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East
Indiaman at Gravesend to see her ; and we had had pre-
served ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort
for lunch ; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-
stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her
arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the
contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and
key.

Agnes said, she was afraid, I must have given her an
unpromising character; but Dora corrected that directly.

" Oh no ! " she said, shaking her curls at me ; " it was
all praise. He thinks so much of your opinion, that I was
quite afraid of it."

" My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to
some people whom he knows," said Agnes, with a smile;
"it is not worth their having."

"But please let me have it," said Dora, in her coaxing
way, " if you can ! "

We made merry about Dora's wanting to be liked, and
Dora said I was a goose, and she didn't like me at any rate,
and the short evening flew away on gossamer-wings. The
time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. I was
standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing
softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I
went.

" Don't you think, if I had had her for a friend a long
time ago, Doady," said Dora, her bright eyes shining very
brightly, and her little right hand idly busying itself with
one of the buttons of my coat, " I might have been more
clever perhaps? "

" My love ! " said I, " what nonsense ! "

"Do you think it is nonsense? " returned Dora, without
looking at me. "Are you sure it is? "

" Of course I am ! "

"I have forgotten," said Dora, still turning the button
round and round, " what relation Agnes is to you, you dear
bad boy. "

"No blood-relation," I replied; "but we were brought
up together, like brother and sister "

vF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 613

ftl wonder why you ever fell in love with me?" said
Dora, beginning on another button of my coat.

" Perhaps because I couldn't see you, and not love you,
Bora!"

" Suppose you had never seen me at all," said Dora,
going to another button.

" Suppose we had never been born ! " said I, gaily.

I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced
in admiring silence at the little soft hand travelling up the
row of buttons on my coat, and at the clustering hair that
lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast
eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At
length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on
tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that pre-
cious little kiss — once, twice, three times — and went out of
the room.

They all came back together within five minutes after-
wards, and Dora's unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone
then. She was laughingly resolved to put Jip through the
whole of his performances, before the coach came. They
took some time (not so much on account of their variety,
as Jip's reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was
heard at the door. There was a hurried but affectionate
parting between Agnes and herself; and Dora was to write
to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish,
she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had
a second parting at the coach-door, and a third when Dora,
in spite of the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come
running out once more to remind Agnes at the coach-window
about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box.

The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden,,
where we were to take another stage-coach for Highgate.
I was impatient for the short walk in the interval, that
Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what praise it was!
How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty
creature I had won, with all her artless graces best dis-
played, to my most gentle care. How thoughtfully remind
me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which
I held the orphan child !

Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as
i loved her that night. When we had again alighted, and
were walking in the starlight along the quiet road that led
to the Doctor's house, I told Agnes it was her doing.

•514 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" When you were sitting by her," said I, "you seemed to
be no less her guardian angel than mine ; and you seem so
now, Agnes."

"A poor angel," she returned, "but faithful."

The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart,
made it natural to me to say :

" The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no
one else that ever I have seen), is so restored, I have ob-
served to-day, that I have begun to hope you are happier
at home? "

"I am happier in myself," she said; "I am quite cheer-
ful and light-hearted."

I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought
it was the stars that made it seem so noble.

"There has been no change at home," said Agnes, after
a few moments.

"No fresh reference," said I, "to — I wouldn't distress
you, Agnes, but I cannot help asking — to what we spoke
of, when we parted last? "

"No, none," she answered.

" I have thought so much about it.''

" You must think less about it. Remember that I con-
fide in simple love and truth at last. Have no apprehen-
sions for me, Trotwood," she added, after a moment; "the
step you dread my taking, I shall never take."

Although I think I had never really feared it, in any
season of cool reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me
to have this assurance from her own truthful lips. I told
her so, earnestly.

"And when this visit is over," said I, — "for we may not
be alone another time, — how long is it likely to be, my dear
Agnes, before you come to London again? "

"Probably a long time," she replied; "I think it will be
best — for papa's sake — to remain at home. We are not
likely to meet often, for some time to come ; but I shall be a
good correspondent of Dora's, and we shall frequently hear
of one another that way."

We were now within the little courtyard of the Doctor's
cottage. It was growing late. There was a light in the
window of Mrs. Strong's chamber, and Agnes, pointing to
it, bade me good night.

"Do not be troubled," she said, giving me her hand, "by
our misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing

OF "DAVID COPPERPIELD c!5

than in your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely
upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you always ! "

In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her
cheerful voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little
Dora in her company. I stood awhile, looking through the
porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and gratitude,
and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a
decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate,
when, happening to turn my head, I saw a light in the
Doctor's study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my
mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without
my help. With the view of seeing if this were so, and, in
any case, of bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting
among his books, I turned back, and going softly across
the hall, and gently opening the door, looked in.

The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the
sober light of the shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was stand-
ing close beside it, with one of his skeleton hands over his
mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor's table. The
Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his
hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was
leaning forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor's arm.

For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I
hastily advanced a step under that impression, when I met
Uriah's eye, and saw what was the matter. I would have
withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain me,
and I remained.

" At any rate," observed Uriah, with a writhe of his un-
gainly person, "we may keep the door shut. We needn't
make it known to all the town."

Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I
had left open, and carefully closed it. He then came back,
and took up his former position. There was an obtrusive
show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more
intolerable — at least to me— than any demeanour he couH
have assumed.

u I have felt it incumbent upon me. Master Copperfield."
said Uriah, " to point out to Doctor Strong what you and
me have already talked about. You didn't exactly under-
stand me. though ? "

I gave him a look, but no other answer; and. going t<r
my good old master, said a few words that I meant to be
irords of comfort and encouragement. He put his hand

616 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom to do when
I was quite a little fellow, but did. not lift his grey
head.

"As you didn't understand me, Master Copperfield," re-
sumed Uriah in the same officious manner, " I may take the
liberty of nmbly mentioning, being among friends, that I
have called Doctor Strong's attention to the goings-on of
Mrs. Strong. It's much against the grain with me, I assure
you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant ;
but really, as it is, we're all mixing ourselves up with what
oughtn't to be. That was what my meaning was, Sir, when
you didn't understand me."

I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not col-
lar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body.

"I dare say I didn't make myself very clear," he went
on, "nor you neither. Naturally, we was both of us in-
clined to give such a subject a wide berth. Hows'ever, at
last I have made up my mind to speak plain ; and I have
mentioned to Doctor Strong that — did you speak, Sir? "

This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound
might have touched any heart, I thought, but it had no
effect upon Uriah's.

" — mentioned to Doctor Strong," he proceeded, "that
anyone may see that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agree-
able lady as is Doctor Strong's wife, are too sweet on one
another. Really the time is come (we being at present all
mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be), when Doc-
tor Strong must be told that this was full as plain to every-
body as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India; that
Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else ;
and that he's always here, for nothing else. When you
come in, Sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner,"
towards whom he turned, " to say to Doctor Strong upon
his word and honour, whether he'd ever been of this opinion
long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wiekfield, Sir! Would you
be so good as tell us? Yes or no, Sir? Come, partner! "

"For God's sake, my dear Doctor," said Mr. Wickfield,
again laying his irresolute hand upon the Doctor's arm,
" don't attach too much weight to any suspicions I may
have entertained."

"There!" cried Uriah, shaking his head. "What a
melancholy confirmation; ain't it? Him! Such an old
friend ! Bless your soul, when J. was nothing but a clerk

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 617

in his office, Copperfield, I've seen him twenty times, if
I've seen him once, quite in a taking about it— quite put
out. you know (and very proper in him as a father; I'm
sure 7 can't blame him), to think that Miss Agnes was
mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be."

" My dear Strong," said Mr. Wiekfield in a tremulous
voice,"" my good friend, I needn't tell you that it has been
my vice to look for some one master motive in everybody,
and to try all actions by one narrow test. I may have
fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake

"You have had doubts, Wiekfield," said the Doctor,
without lifting up his head. " You have had doubts."

" Speak up, fellow-partner," urged Uriah.

" I had, at one time, certainly," said Mr. Wiekfield. I
—God forgive me— I thought you had."

" No, no, uo ! " returned the Doctor, in a tone of most

Pa« I thought', at one time," said Mr. Wiekfield, "that you
wished to send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separa-
tion." etm . .

"No, no, no!" returned the Doctor. "To give Annie
pleasure, by making some provision for the companion of
her childhood. Nothing else."

"So I found," said Mr. Wiekfield. "I couldn't doubt
it, when you told me so. But I thought— I implore you
to remember the narrow construction which has been my
besetting sin— that, in a case where there was so much dis-
parity in point of years " „ .,.„

" That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield .
observed Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity.

" —a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however
real her respect for you, might have been influenced in
marrying, by worldly considerations only. I made no
allowance for innumerable feelings and circumstances that
may have all tended to good. For Heaven's sake remem-
ber that!" , , . .. . .

" How kind he puts it! " said Uriah, shaking his head.

" Always observing her from one point of view," said
Mr. Wiekfield; "but by all that is dear to you, my old
friend, I entreat you to consider what it was ; T am forced
to confess now, having no escape "

"No! There's no way out of it, Mr. Wiekfield, bir,
observed Uriah, "when it's got to this."

018 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" —that I did," said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly
and distractedly at his partner, " that I did doubt her, and
think her wanting in her duty to you ; and that I did some-
times, if I must say all, feel averse to Agnes being in such
a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I saw, or in
my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned
this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone.
And though it is terrible to you to hear," said Mr. Wick-
field, quite subdued, " if you knew how terrible it is for me
to tell, you would feel compassion for me ! "

The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put
out his hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in
his, with his head bowed down.

" I am sure," said Uriah, writhing himself into the si-
lence like a conger-eel, "that this is a subject full of
unpleasantness to everybody. But since we have got so far,
I ought to take the liberty of mentioning that Copperfield
has noticed it too."

I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer tc
me!

" Oh ! it's very kind of you, Copperfield," returned Uriah,
undulating all over, "and we all know what an amiable
character yours is ; but you know that the moment I spoke
to you the other night, you knew what I meant. You know
you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don't deny it J
You deny it with the best intentions ; but don't do it, Cop-
perfield ! "

I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upoc
me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old
misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in
my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I
could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not un-
say it

We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor
rose and walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently
he returned to where his chair stood ; and, leaning on the
back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchie'f to
his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more honour,
to my thinking, than any disguise he could have affected,
said:

" I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very
much to blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my
heart, to trials and aspersions — I call them aspersions, even

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 619

to have been conceived in anybody's inmost mind — of which
she never, bnt for me, could have been the object."

Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express
sympathy.

"Of which my Annie," said the Doctor, "never, but for
me, could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as
you know ; I do not feel, to-night, that I have much to live
for. But my life — my life — upon the truth and honour of the
dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation! "

I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the
realisation of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever
imagined by painter, could have said this with a more im-
pressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did.

" But I am not prepared," he went on, " to deny — per-
haps 1 may have been, without knowing it, in some degree
prepared to admit — that I may have unwittingly ensnared
that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite
unaccustomed to observe ; and I cannot but believe that the
observation of several people, of different ages and positions,
all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural),
is better than mine."

I had often admired, as 1 have elsewhere described, his
benignant manner towards his youthful wife ; but the re-
spectful tenderness he manifested in every reference to her
on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which
he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity,
exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description.

"I married that lady," said the Doctor, "when she was
extremely young 1 took her to myself when her character
was scarcely formed. So far as it was developed, it had
been my happiness to form it. I knew her father well. I
knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love
of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her
vrong ; as I fear I did, in taking advantage (but I never
meant it) of her gratitude and her affection ; I ask pardon
of that lady, in my heart ! "

He walked across the room, and came back to the same
place; holding the chair with a grasp that trembled, like
his subdued voice, in its earnestness

''I regarded myself a? a refuge, for her, from the dangers
and vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal
though we were in years, she would live tranquilly and
contentedly with me, I did uot shut out of my considera-

620 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

tion the time when I should leave her free, and still young
and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured —
no, gentlemen — upon my truth ! "

His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidel-
ity and generosity. Every word he uttered had a force
that no other grace could have imparted to it.

" My life with this lady has been very happy. Until to-
night, I have had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day
on which I did her great injustice. "

His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of
these words, stopped for a few moments ; then he went on :

" Once awakened from my dream — I have been a poor
dreamer, in one way or other, all my life — I see how nat-
ural it is that she should have some regretful feeling to-
wards her old companion and her equal. That she does
regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless
thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I fear,
too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come
back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying
hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name
nevei must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt."

For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm
for a little while he was again silent. Presently, he pro-
ceeded as before :

" It only remains for me, to bear tne knowledge of the
unhappinass I have occasioned, as submissively as 1 can.
It is she who should reproach ; not I. To save her from
misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends
have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more
retired we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when
the time comes — may it come soon, if it be His merciful
pleasure ! — when my death shall release her from constraint,
I shall close my eyes upon her honoured face, with un-
bounded confidence and love ; and leave her, with no sorrow
then, to happier and brighter days."

I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness
and goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect
simplicity of his manner, brought into my eyes. He had
moved to the door, when he added:

u Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure
you will respect it. What we have said to-night is never
to be said more. Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm
ap-stairs ! *

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 621

Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging
a word they went slowly out of the room together, Uriah
looking after them.

" Well, Master Copperfield ! " said Uriah, meekly turn-
ing to me. " The thing hasn't took quite the turn that
might have been expected, for the old Scholar — what an
excellent man! — is as blind as a brick-bat ; but this family's
out of the cart, I think ! "

I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly en
raged as I never was before, and never have been since.

" You villain," said I, " what do you mean by entrapping
me into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just
now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussiou
together? »

As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the
stealthy exultation of his face, what I already so plainly
knew ; I mean that he forced his confidence upon me, ex-
pressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap
for me in this very matter; that I couldn't bear it. The
whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I
struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers
tingled as if I had burnt them.

He caught the hand in his, and we stood, in that con-
nexion, looking at each other. We stood so, a long time ;
long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers
die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper
red.

"Copperfield," he said at length, in a breathless voice,
"have you taken leave of your senses? "

"I have taken leave of you," said I, wresting my hand
away. "You dog, I'll know no more of you."

"Won't you?" said he, constrained by the pain of his
cheek to put his hand there. " Perhaps you won't be able
to help it. Isn't this ungrateful of you, now? "

"I have shown you often enough," said I, "that 1 de
spise you. I have shown you now, more plainly, that I do.
Why should I dread your doing your worst to all about you?
What else do you ever do? "

He perfectly understood this allusion to the considera-
tions that had hitherto restrained me in my communications
with him. I rather think that neither the blow, nor the
allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance T
had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter.

622 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked
at me, seemed to take every shade of colour that could
make eyes ugly.

" Copperfield," he said, removing his hand from his cheek,
" you have always gone against me. I know you always
used to be against me at Mr TVickfield's."

"You may think what you like," said I, still in a
towering rage. ' Tf it is not true, so much the worthier
you "

" And yet I always liked you, Copperfield! " he rejoined

I deigned to make him no reply ; and, taking up my hat
was going out to bed, when he came between me and the
door.

"Copperfield," he said, "there must be two parties to a
quarrel. I won't be one."

" Yrou may go to the devil ! " said I.

" Don't say that ! " he replied. " I know you'll be sorry
afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me?
as to show such a bad spirit? But I forgive you."

" Yrou forgive me!" I repeated disdainfully.

" I do, and you can't help yourself, " replied Uriah. " To
think of your going and attacking me, that have always
been a friend to you! But there can't be a quarrel without
two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you,
in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to
expect."

The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in
which was very slow ; mine very quick) in a low tone, that
the house might not be disturbed at an unseasonable hou^
did not improve my temper ; though my passion was cool-
ing down. Merely telling him that I should expect from
him what I always had expected, and had never yet been
disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had
been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out
of the house. But he slept out of the house too, at his
mother's lodging; and before I Lad gone many hundred
yards, came up with me.

"You know, Copperfield," he said, in my ear (I did not
turn my head), "you're in quite a wrong position; " which
I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more; "you
can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being
forgiven I don't intend to mention it to mother nor to
any Living soul. I'm determined to forgive you. But J

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 623

do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person
that you knew to be so umble ! "

I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than
I knew myself. If he had retorted, or openly exasperated
me, it would have been a relief and a justification ; but he
had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half
the night.

In the morning, when I came out, the early church bell
was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his
mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and
I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough
to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face
was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his
hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his
appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London
on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it
was a double one.

The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well ; and re-
mained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during
the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been
gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the
day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his
own hands a folded note, not sealed. It was addressed to
myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate
words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had
confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a
subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly
had not the least suspicion of what had passed.

Neither, I felt convinced, nad Mrs. Strong then. Several
weeks elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It
came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. At
first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with
which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she
should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monot
ony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she
was sitting by, I would, see her pausing and looking at him
with that memorable face. Afterwards,. I sometimes ob-
served her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of
the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her
beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a
regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked and
talked, and saw nothing.

As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the

624 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Doctor's house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and
more grave; but the sweetness of his temper, the placid
kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for
her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased.
I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday,
when she came to sit in the window while we were at work
(which she ha^ always done, but now began to do with a
timid and uncertain air that I thought very touching) , take
her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly
away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where
he had left her? like a statue ; and then bend down her
head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I cannot say how
sorrowfully.

Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak
•even to me, in intervals when we were left alone. But she
never uttered word. The Doctor always had some new
project for her participating in amusements away from home,
with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond
•of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything
•else, entered into them with great good-will, and was loud
in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless, unhappy
way, only went whither she was led, and seemed to have
no care for anything.

I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt ;
who must have walked, at various times, a hundred miles
in her uncertainty. What was strangest of all was, that the
only real relief which seemed to make its way into the
secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way
there in the person of Mr. Dick.

What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his ob-
servation was, I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he
would have been to assist me in the task. But, as I have
recorded in the narrative of my schooldays, his veneration
for the Doctor was unbounded ; and there is a subtlety of
perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards
man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest
intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call
it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight.

He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his
spare hours, of walking up and down the garden with the
Doctor ; as he had been accustomed to pace up and down
The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury But matteis were no
sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 625

(and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations.
If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor read that
marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him; he was
now quite miserable unless the Doctor pulled it out of his
pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were engaged,
he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with
Mrs. Strong, and helping her to trim her favourite flowers,
or weed the beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words
in an hour: but his quiet interest, and his wistful face,
found immediate response in both their breasts ; each knew
that the other liked him, and that he loved both ; and he
became what no one else could be — a link between them.

TVhen I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face,
walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be bat-
tered by the hard words in the Dictionary ; when I think
of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie; kneeling
down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work
among the little leaves ; expressing as no philosopher could
have expressed,- in everything he did, a delicate desire to
be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affec-
tion, out of every hole in the watering-pot ; when I think
of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which
unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate
King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grate-
ful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there
was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right — I
really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was
not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have
done with mine.

" Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is ! "
my aunt would proudly remark, when we conversed about
it. "Dick will distinguish himself yet! "

I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter.
While the visit at the Doctor's was still in progress, I ob-
served that the postman brought two or three letters every
morning for Uriah Heep, who remained at Highgate until
the rest went back, it being a leisure time ; and that these
were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr.
Micawber, who now assumed a round legal hand. I was
glad to infer, from these slight premises, that Mr. Micaw-
ber was doing well ; and consequently was much surprised
to receive, about this time, the following letter from his
amiable wife :-~
40

626 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

M Canterbury, Monday Evening.

'" Y ou will doubtless be surprised, nry dear Mr. Copper*
field, to receive this communication. Still more so, by its
contents. Still more so, by the stipulation of implicit con-
fidence which I beg to impose. But my feelings as a wife
and mother require relief ; and as I do not wish to consult
my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Mieaw-
ber), I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than
my friend and former lodger.

" You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that be-
tween myself and Mr. Micawber (whom I will never desert),
there has always been preserved a spirit of mutual con-
fidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given a bill
without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the
period when that obligation would become due. This has
actually happened. But, in general, Mr. Micawber has
had no secrets from the bosom of affection — I allude to his
wife — and has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled
the events of the day.

" You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield,
what the poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform
you that Mr. Micawber is entirely changed. He is reserved.
He is secret. His life is a mystery to the partner of his
joys and sorrows — T again allude to his wife — and if I
should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed
from morning to night at the office, I now know less of it
than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose
mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respect-
ing cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to
express an actual fact.

"But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is
severe. He is estranged from our eldest son and daughter,
he has no pride in his twins, he looks with an eye of cold-
ness even on the unoffending stranger who last became a
member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting our
expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained
from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful
threats that he will Settle himself (the exact expression) ;
and he inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever
of this distracting policy.

"This is hard to bear. This is heart -breaking. If you
will advise me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are,
how you think it will be best to exert them in a dilemma

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 627

so unwonted, you will add another friendly obligation to
the many you have already rendered me. With loves from
the children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious
stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield,

" Your afflicted

'•Emma Micawber."

I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micaw-
ber's experience any other recommendation, than that she
should try to reclaim Mr. Micawber by patience and kind-
ness (as I knew she would in any case) ; but the letter set
me thinking about him very much.

CHAPTER XLII1

ANOTHER RETROSPECT.

Uxce again, let me pause upon a memorable period of
my life. Let me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those
days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim
procession.

Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little
-uore than a summer day and a winter evening. Xow, the
Common where I walk with Dora is all in bloom, a field of
bright gold ; and now the unseen heather lies in mounds
and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath,
the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling
in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thick-
ened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river pu
towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away.

Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little oird
like ladies. The clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather
glass hangs in the hall. Neither clock nor weather-glass
is ever right ; but we believe in both, devoutly.

I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained
the dignity of twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity
that may be thrust upon one Let me think what I have
achieved.

I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make
a respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my
accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined

628 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament
for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record pre-
dictions that never come to pass, professions that are never
fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I
wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is
always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through
and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with
red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the
worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it5 and
shall never be converted.

My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same
pursuit, but it is not in Traddles' s way. He is perfectly
good-humoured respecting his failure, and reminds me that
he always did consider himself slow. He has occasional
employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts
of dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by
more fertile minds. He is called to the Bar; and with
admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another
hundred pounds together, to fee a conveyancer whose cham-
bers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was
consumed at his call; and, considering the figure, I should
think the Inner Temple must have made a profit by it.

I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear
and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something,
in secret, a^d sent it to a magazine, and it was published
in the magazine. Since then, I have taken heart to write
a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for
them. Altogether, I am well off ; when I tell my income
on the fingers of my left hand, I pass the third finger and
take in the fourth to the middle joint.

We have removed from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant
little cottage very near the one I looked at, when my en-
thusiasm first came on. My aunt, however (who has sold
the house at Dover, to good advantage), is not going to
remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more
tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend? My
marriage? Yes!

Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia
and Miss Clarissa have given their consent; and if ever
canary-birds were in a flutter, they are. Miss Lavinia,
self -charged with the superintendence of my darling's
wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses,
and differing in opinion from a highly respectable young

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.

629

man, with a long bundle, and a yard measure under his arm.
A dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle
and thread, boards and lodges in the house ; and seems to
me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble
off. They make a lay-figure of mj dear. They are^ always
sending for her to come and try something on. We can't
be happy together for five minutes in the evening, but some
intrusive female knocks at the door, and says, " Oh, if you
please, Miss Dora, would you step up-stairs! "

Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find
out articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It
would be better for them to buy the goods at once, without
this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go to see a
kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house
for Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And
it takes a long time to accustom Jip to his new residence,
after we have bought it; whenever he goes in or out, he
makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly frightened.

Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to
work immediately. Her department appears to be, to clean
everything over and over again. She rubs everything that
can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own honest forehead,
with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to see
her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at
night, and looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces.
I never speak to him at such an hour. I know too well, as
his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what
he dreads.

Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon
me this afternoon in the Commons— where I still occasion-
ally attend, for form's sake, when I have time? The realisa-
tion of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am going to
take out the licence.

It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles con-
templates it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration,
half in awe. There are the names in the sweet old vision-
ary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and
there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp
Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various
transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union;
and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a bless-
ing on us in print, and doins it as cheap as could possibJj
be expected

630 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried
dream. I can't believe that it is going to be ; and yet T
can't believe but that every one I pass in the street, must
have some kind of perception, that I am to be married the
day after to-morrow. The Surrogate knows me, when I go
down to be sworn ; and disposes of me easily, as if there
were a Masonic understanding between us. Traddles is
not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general
backer.

" I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow, "
i say to Traddles, " it will be on the same errand for your=
self. And I hope it will be soon."

" Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,"
he replies. "I hope so too. It's a satisfaction to know
that she'll wait for me any length of time, and that she
really is the dearest girl "

u When are you to meet her at the coach? " I ask.

"At seven," says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver
vvatch — the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at
school, to make a water-mill. " That is about Miss Wick-
field* s time, is it not? "

" A little earlier. Her time is half -past eight."

"I assure you, my dear boy," says Traddles, "I am al-
most as pleased as if I were going to be married myself, to
think that this event is coming to such a happy termination.
Ajid really the great friendship and consideration of per-
sonally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and
inviting her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss
Wickfield, . demands my warmest thanks. I am extremely
sensible of it."

I hear him, and shake hands with him ; and we talk, and
vvalk, and dine, and so on ; but I don't believe it. Noth
ing is real.

Sophy arrives at the house of Dora's aunts, in due course.
She has the most agreeable of faces, — not absolutely beau-
tiful, but extraordinarily pleasant, — and is one of the most
genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever
seen. Traddles presents her to us with great pride ; and
rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every in-
dividual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I con-
gratulate him in a corner on his choice.

I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and
her cheerful and beautiful face is among us for the second

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 631

time. Agnes has a great liking for Traddles, and it is
capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of Trad-
dles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her
acquaintance.

Still I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening,
and are supremely happy ; but I don't believe it yet I
can't collect myself. I can't check off my happiness as it
takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state ;
as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two
ago. and had never been to bed since. I can't make out
when yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the
licence about, in my pocket, many months.

Kext day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house

our house— Dora' sand mine — I am quite unable to regard

myself as its master. I seem to be there, by permission of
somebody else. I half expect the real master to come home
presently, and say he is glad to see me. Such a beautiful
little house as it is, with everything so bright and new ;
with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered,
and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come
out ; with the spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing
rose-coloured furniture, and Dora's garden hat with the
blue ribbon— do I remember, now, how I loved her in such
another hat when I first knew her !— already hanging on its
little peg ; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a
corner; and everybody tumbling over Jip's pagoda, which
is much too big for the establishment.

Amother happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of
it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora
is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet.
Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she
will not be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding ; but
by-and-by I hear a rustling at the door, and pome one taps.

I say, " Come in ! " but some one taps again.

I go to the door, wondering who it is ; there, I meet a
pair of brigK eyes, and a blushing face ; they are Dora's
eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has dressed her in to-
morrow's dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take my
little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little
scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs anc
cries at once, because I am so pleased; and I believe it les?
than ever.

" Do you think ;t pretty. Doady? " says Dora

632 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Pretty! I should rather think I did.

"And are you sure you like me very much?" says
Dora.

The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that
Miss Lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to
understand that Dora is only to be looked at, and on no
account to be touched. So Dora stands in a delightful state
of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired ; and then
takes off her bonnet — looking so natural without it! — and
runs away with it in her hand ; and comes dancing down
again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I have got
a beautiful little wife, and whether he'll forgive her for
being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon
the Cookery Book, for the last time in her single life.

I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that
I have hard by ; ar d get up very early in the morning, to
ride to the Highgate road and fetch my aunt.

I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed
in lavender-coloured silk, and has a white bonnet on, and
is amazing. Janet has dressed her, and is there to look at
me. Peggotty is ready to go to church, intending to be-
hold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to
give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled.
Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the
turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream colour
and light blue ; and both he and Mr. Dick have a genera]
effect about them of being all gloves.

No doubt I see this, because I know it is so ; but I am
astray, and seem to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything
whatever. Still, as we drive along in an open carriage,
this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of
wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part
in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their
daily occupations.

My aunt sits writh my hand in hers all the wav When
we stop a little way short of the church, to put down Peg-
gotty, whom we have brought on the box, she gives it a
squeeze, and me a kiss.

"God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could bo
dearer. I think of poor dear Baby this morning. "

" So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt."

u Tut, child ! " says my aunt ; and gives her hand in
'overflowing cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his t©

OF DAVID COPPEIiFIELD. 633

Mi. Dick, who then gives his to me, who then give mine
to Traddles, and then we come to the chnrch door.

The church is calm enough, I am sure ; but it might be
a steam-power loom in full action, for any sedative effect it
has on me. I am too far gone for that.

The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream.

A dream of their coming in with Dora ; of the pew-opener
arranging us, like a drill-serjeant, before the altar rails ; of
my wondering, even then, why pew-openers must always
be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether
there is any religion? dread of a disastrous infection of good-
humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels
of vinegar upon the road to Heaven.

Of the clergyman and clerk appearing ; of a few boatmen
and some other people strolling in ; of an ancient mariner
behind me, strongly flavouring the church with rum: of
the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very-
attentive.

Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid,
being the first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take
it) to the memory of Pidger, in sobs ; of Miss Clarissa ap-
plying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes taking care of Dora; of
my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of
sternness, with tears rolling down her face ; of little Dora
trembling very much, and making her responses in faint
whispers.

Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora's
trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the
hand ; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely ;
of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles
and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysteri-
cal in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear
papa.

Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the regis-
ter all round. Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty
to bring her to sign it ; of Peggotty * s hugging me in a corner,
and telling me she saw my own dear mother married ; of its
being over, and our going away.

Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle
with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-
seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs, and
church -windows, in which there flutter faint airs of associa*
tion with my childish church at home, so long ago.

634 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple
we are, and what a pretty little wife she is. Of our all
being so merry and talkative in the carriage going back
Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles (whom 1
had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost
fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to
lose it, or to have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing
gaily ; and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will
not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand.

Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things,
pretty and substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake;,
as I should do in any other dreani, without the least percep-
tion of their flavour ; eating^ and drinking, as I may say,
nothing but love and marriage, and no more believing in
the viands than in anythiDg else

Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion,
without having an idea of what I want to say, beyond such
as may be comprehended in the full conviction that I haven't
said it. Of our being very sociably and simply happy (al-
ways in a dream though) ; and of Jip's having wedding
cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards.

Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of
Dora's going away to change her dress. Of my aunt and
Miss Clarissa remaining with us ; and our walking in the
garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at
breakfast touching Dora's aunts, being mightily amused
with herself, but a little proud of it too.

Of Dora's being ready, and of Miss Lavinia's hovering
about her, loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so
much pleasant occupation. Of Dora's making a long series
of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of
little things; and of everybody's running everywhere to
fetch them.

Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins
to say ,good-bye, looking, with their bright colours and
ribbons, like a bed of flowers Of my darling being almost
smothered among the flowers, and coming out, laughing and
crying both together, to my jealous arms ,

Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us),
and Dora's saying No, that she must carry him, or else he'll
think she don't like him anymore, now she is married, and
will break his heart. Of our going, arm in arm, and Dora
stopping: and looking back, and saying, "If I have eve*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 635

been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don't remember it! "
and bursting into tears.

Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once
more. Of her once more stopping and looking back, and
hurrying to Agnes, and giving Agnes, above all the others,
her last kisses and farewells.

We drive away together, and I awake from the dream.
I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside
me, whom I love so well!

"Are you happy now, you foolish boy?" says Dora,
" and sure you don't repent? "

T have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go
by me They are gone, and I resume the journey of my
story

CHAPTER XL1V

OUR HOUSEKEEPING.

It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon
being over, and the bridesmaids gone home, when I found
myself sitting down in my own small house with Dora;
quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in respect
of the delicious old occupation of making love.

It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora al-
ways there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to
go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting
myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be
scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her.
Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writ-
ing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my
chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone
together as a matter of course— nobody's business anymore
— all the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf,
to rust— no ons to please but one another— one another to
please, for life

When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late,
it seemed so strange to me, as I was walking home, to think
that Dora was at home ! It was such a wonderful thing, at
first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate

636 PERSONAL HISTORY AJSD EXPERIENCE

my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for
certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether
such an astonishing event to see her do it !

I doubt whether two young birds could have known less
about keeping house than I and my pretty Dora did. We
had a servant, of course She kept house for us. 1 have
still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs Crupp's
daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with
Mary Anne.

Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to
us, when we engaged her, as being feebly expressed ia her
name She had a written character, as large as a Procla-
mation ; and, according to this document, could do every-
thing of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a
great many things that I never did hear of She was a
woman in the prime of life ; of a severe countenance ; and
subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual
measles or fiery rash She had a cousin in the Life Guards,
with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow
of somebody else His shell -jacket was as much too little
for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the
cottage smaller than it need have been, by being so very
much out of proportion to it. Besides which, the walls were
not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house,
we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the
kitchen

Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am
therefore willing to believe thai she was in a fit when we
found her under the boiler ; and that the deficient teaspoons
were attributable to the dustman.

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully We felt our
inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves We
should have been at her mercy, if she had had any ; but
:" e was a remorseless woman, and had none She was the
y- se of our first little quarrel.

* My dearest life," I said one day to Dora, u do you think
Mary Anne has any idea of time? "

"Why, Doady? " inquired Dora, looking up, innocently,
from her drawing

"My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined
at four. »

Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she
"•♦bought it was too tta

OP DAYID COPPERFIELD 637

"On the contrary, my love," said I, referring to my
watch, "it's a few minutes too slow."

My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me
to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the mid-
dle of my nose; but I couldn't dine off that, though it was
very agreeable.

"Don't you think, my dear," said I, "it would be better
for you to remonstrate with Mary Anne? "

"Oh no, please! I couldn't, Doady! " said Dora.

"Why not, my love? " I gently asked.

"Oh, because I am such a little goose," said Dora, "and
she knows I am ! "

I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the estab-
lishment of any system of check on Mary Anne, that I
frowned a little.

"Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!"
said Dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them
with her pencil ; putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark
blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little
mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in
spite of myself.

"There's a good child," said Dora, "it makes its face so
much prettier to laugh."

"But, my love," said I.

"No, no! please! " cried Dora, with a kiss, "don't be a
naughty Blue Beard! Don't be serious! "

"My precious wife," said I, "we must be serious some-
times. Come ! Sit down on this chair, close beside me !
Give me the pencil ! There ! Now let us talk sensibly.
You know, dear ; " what a little hand it was to hold, and
what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see ! " You know, my
iove, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without
one's dinner. Now, is it? "

"N — n — no! " replied Dora, faintly.

" My love, how you tremble ! "

"Because I know you're going to scold me," exclaimed
Dora, in a piteous voice.

" My sweet, I am only going to reason, "

" Oh, but reasoning is ^vorse than scolding ! " exclaimed
Dora, in despair. " I didn't marry to be reasoned with.
If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I
am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy! "

I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and

f>38 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

shook her curls from side to side, and said "You cruel,
cruel boy ! " so many times, that I really did not exactly
know what to do : so I took a few turns up and down the
room in my uncertainty, and came back again.

"Dora, my darling! "

" No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry
that you married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me ! "
returned Dora.

I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature A this
charge, that it gave me courage to be grave.

"Now, my own Dora," said I, "you are verj childish,
and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure,
that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was
half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite un-
well by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry ; to-
day, I don't dine at all — and I am afraid to say how long
we waited for breakfast — and then the water didn't boil.
I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not
comfortable."

" Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable
wife s " cried Dora.

" Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said
that!"

"You said I wasn't comfortable! " said Dora.

"I said the housekeeping was not comfortable."

"It's exactly the same thing!" cried Dora. And she
evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously.

I took another turn across the room, full of love for my
pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations
to knock my head against the door. I sat down again,
and said:

"I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great
deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear,
that you must — you really must " (I was resolved not to
give this up) "accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne
Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me."

"I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful
speeches," sobbed Dora. "When you know that the other
day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I
went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to sur-
prise you."

"And it was very kind of you, my own darling," said 1.
" I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have even

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 639

mentioned that you bought a Salmon — which was too much
for two. Or that it cost one pound six — which was more
than we can afford."

"You enjoyed it very much," sobbed Dora "And you
said T was a Mouse."

■• And I'll say so again, my love," I returned, "a thou-
san :1 times ! "

But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was
not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing
and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don't know
what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away ; I was kept
out late ; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made
me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was
haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home.
I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.

" Is anything the matter, aunt? " said I, alarmed.

"Xothing, Trot," she replied. "Sit down, sit down.
Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have
been keeping her company. That's all."

I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry
and downcast, as I sat looking at the fire, than I could
have supposed posoible so soon after the fulfilment of my
brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet
my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There
was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly.

" I assure you, aunt," said I, " I have been quite unhappy
myself all night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had
no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lov-
ingly about our home-affairs."

My aunt nodded encouragement.

"You must have patience, Trot," said she.

M Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreason-
able, aunt! "

" No, no," said my aunt. " But Little Blossom is a very
tender little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with
her."

1 thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness
towards my wife; and I was sure that she knew I did.

" Don't you think, aunt," said I, after some further
contemplation of the fire, "that you could advise and
counsel Dora a little, for our mutual advantage, now and
then? "

640 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Trot," returned my aunt, with some emotion, "no!
Don't ask me such a thing! "

Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in
surprise.

- 1 look back on my life, child," said my aunt, " and I
think of some who are in their graves, with whom I might
have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other
people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I
had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that
pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a
woman, a good many years I am still, and I always shall
be. But you and I have done one another some good,
Trot — at all events, you have done me good, my dear;
and division must not come between us, at this time of
day."

" Division between us I n cried 1

" Child, child ! n said my aunt, smoothing her dress,
" how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I
might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything>
a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to like me, and be
as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that
second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury
you have hinted at ! "

I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right $ and
1 comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling
towards my dear wife.

"These are early days, Trot," she pursued, "and Rome
was not built in a day, nor in a year.- You have chosen
freely for yourself ; " a cloud passed over her face for a
moment. I thought ; " and you have chosen a very pretty
and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and
it will be your pleasure too — of course I know that ; I am
not delivering a lecture — to estimate her (as you chose
her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she
may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you
can. And if you cannot, child," here my aunt rubbed her
nose, "you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em.
But remember, my dear, your future is between you two.
No one can assist you ; you are to work it out for yourselves
This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in it,
for a pair of babes in the wood as you are ! "

My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss
to ratify the blessing

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 641

rtNow," said she, "light my little lantern, and see me
into my band-box by the garden path ; " for there was a
communication between our cottages in that direction.
"Give Betsey Trotwood's love to Blossom, when you come
back ; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting
Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if / ever saw her in the glass,
she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private
capacity ! "

With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkei chief,
with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on
such occasions ; and I escorted her home. As she stood in
her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back,
I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again ;
but I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had
said, and too much impressed — for the first time, in reality
— by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work out
our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us,
to take much notice of it.

Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet
me, now that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder,
and said I had been hard-hearted and she had been naughty ;
and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe ; and we
made it up, and agreed that our first little difference was to
be our last, and that we were never to have another if we
lived a hundred years.

The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal
of Servants. Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-
hole, and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a
piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away hand-
cuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with
ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who
went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was surprised,
until I found out about the teaspoons, and also about the
little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeo-
ple without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidger-
bury— the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe,
who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute her
conceptions of that art— we found another treasure, who
was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally
made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs
with the tray, and almost always plunged into the parlour,
as into a bath, with tne tea-things. The ravages committed
by this unfortunate rendering her dismissal necessary, she
41

642 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

;vas succeeded (with, intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a
long Line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of
genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's
bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average
equality of failure.

Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat
us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged
goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a
lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to
be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our Lo
In search of the principle on which joints ought to be
roasted, to be roasted enough; and not too much. I myself
referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there estab-
lished as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every
pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always
f Ailed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit
any medium between redness and cinders.

I had leason to believe that in accomplishing these fail-
ures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had
achieved a series of triumphs. It appeared to me, on look-
ing over the tradesmen's books, as if we might have kept
the basement story paved with butter, such was the exten-
sive scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know
whether the Excise returns of the period may have exhibited
any increase in the demand for pepper ; but if our perform-
ances did not affect the market, I should say several fam-
ilies must have left off using it. And the most wonder-
ful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the
house.

As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming
in a state of penitent intoxication to apologise, I suppose
that might have happened several times to anybody. Also
the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the
part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were per-
sonally unfortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for
cordials, who swelled our running account for porter at the
public -house by such inexplicable items as "quartern rum
shrub (Mrs. 0.);" "Half -quartern gin and cloves (Mrs
C.) : " " Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. 0. ) " — the paren-
theses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it ap-
peared on explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these
refreshments.

One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 643

dinner to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to
walk out with me that afternoon. He readily consenting,
I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring him home. It was
pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic
happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very
full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a
home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could
think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss.

I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the
opposite end of the table, but I certainly could have wished,
when we sate down, for a little more room. I did not know
how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were
at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room
enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been
because nothing had a place of its own, except Jip's pagoda,
which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On
the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in by the
pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's flower-painting, and
my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility
of his using his knife and fork ; but he protested, with his
own good-humour, " Oceans of room, Copperneld ! I assure
you, Oceans."

There was another thing I could have wished, namely,
that Jip had never been encouraged to walk about the table-
cloth during dinner. I began to think there was something
disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been
in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted
butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was intro-
duced expressly to keep Traddles at bay ; and he barked
at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with
such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have
engrossed the conversation.

However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora
was, and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her
favourite, I hinted no objection. For similar reasons I
made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor ;
or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, which were
all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk ; or to the further
blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable -dishes and
jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind, as I
contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous
to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat
were of such extraordinary shapes — and whether our butcher

644 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into tho
world ; but I kept my reflections to myself.

"My love," said I to Dora, "what have you got in that
dish? "

I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting
little faces at me, as if she wanted to kiss me.

"Oysters, dear," said Dora, timidly.

u Was that your thought? " said I, delighted

>kYe-yes, Doady," said Dora.

" There never was a happier one ! " I exclaimed, laying
lown the carving-knife and fork. " There is nothing Trad-
dles likes so much ! "

"Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora, "and so I bought a beauti-
ful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very
good. But I — I am afraid there's something the matter
with them. They don't seem right." Here Dora shook
her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes.

"They are only opened in both shells," said I. "Take
the top one off, my love."

"But it won't come off," said Dora, trying very hard,
and looking very much distressed.

"Do you know, Copperfield," said Traddles, cheerfully
examining the dish, "I think it is in consequence — they
are capital oysters, but I think it is in consequence — of their
never having been opened."

They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-
knives — and couldn't have used them if we had; so we
looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate
as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If
I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would
have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful
of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I
would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship ;
and we had a course of bacon instead ; there happening, by
good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder.

My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought
I should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she
found I was not, that the discomfiture I had subdued very
soon vanished, and we passed a happy evening ; Dora sitting
with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I discussed a
glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering
in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross
old boy By-and-by she made tea for us \ which it was so

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 645

pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with a
set of doll's tea-things, that I was not particular about the
quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a
game or two at cribbage ; and Dora singing to the guitar
the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage
were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first
listened to her voice were not yet over.

When Traddles went away, and I came back into the
parlour from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair
close to mine, and sat down by my side.

"lam very sorry," she said. "Will you try to teach
me, Doady? "

"I must teach myself first, Dora," said I " I am as
bad as you, love."

"Ah! But you can learn," she returned; "and you are
a clever, clever man ! "

•'•'Nonsense, blouse! " said I.

"I wish," resumed my wife, after a long silence, "that
I could have gone down into the country for a whole year,
and lived with Agnes ! "

Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin
rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.

"Why so?" I asked.

" I think she might have improved me, and I think ]
might have learned from her" said Dora.

" All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father
to take care of for these many years, you should remember.
Even when she was quite a child, she was the Agnes whom
we know," said I.

"Will you call me a name I want you to call me? * in-
quired Dora, without moving.

"What is it ? " I asked with a smile.

"It's a stupid name," she said, shaking her curls for a
moment. "Child-wife."

I laughingly asked my child- wife what her fancy was in
desiring to be so called. She answered without moving,
otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have
brought her blue eyes nearer to me :

" I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the
name instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think
of me that way. When you are going to be angry with
me, say to yourself, 'it's only my child-wife!' When I
am very disappointing, say, * I knew, a long time ago, that

646 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

she would make but a chikl-wife! ' When you miss what
I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, * still my
foolish child-wife loves me! ' For indeed I do."

I had not been serious with her; having no idea, until
now, that she was serious herself. But her affectionate
nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my
whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before
her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife
indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese house,
ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish Jip
for his recent bad behaviour ; while Jip lay blinking in the
doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased.

This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me.
I look back on the time I write of ; I invoke the innocent
figure that I dearly loved, to come out from the mists and
shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me
once again ; and I can still declare that this one little speech
was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to
the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I
never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading.

Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to
be a wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished
the tablets, nointed the pencil, bought an immense account-
book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread all
the leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and
made quite a desperate little attempt "to be good," as she
called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity
■ — they would not add up. When she had entered two or
three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk
over the page, sagging his tail, and smear them all out.
Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the
very bone in ink ; and I think that was the only decided
result attained.

Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at
work — for I wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in
a small way to be known as a writer — I would lay down
my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be good. First
of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and
lay it down upon the table, with a cleep sigh. Then she
would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible
last night, and call J^p up, to look at his misdeeds. This
would occasion a diversion in Jip' s favour, and some inking
of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty-. Then she would tell

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 647

Jip to lie down on the table instantly, " like a lion "-which
was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was
striking-and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would
obey. Then she would take up a pen, and begin to write,
and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen,
and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then she
would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in
a low voice, "Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb
Doady ! " And then she would give it up as a bad job, and
put the account-book away, after pretending to crush the

lion with it. „ . -,

Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state 01 mind,
she would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket ot
bills, and other documents, which looked more like curl-
papers than anything else, and endeavour to get some result-
out of them. After severely comparing one with another,
and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them out,
and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over
again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and
discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me
pain to see her bright face clouded-and forme:— and 1
would go softly to her, and say:

" What's the matter, Dora? »

Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, "They won t
come right. They make my head ache so. And they won t
do anything I want! " t«* m~

Then I would say, "Now let us try together. Let me

show you, Dora." . . -, ».„

Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to
which Dora would pay profound attention perhaps for five
minutes; when she would begin to be dreadfully tired, and
would lighten the subject by curling my hair, or trying the
effed of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. It 1
tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would
look io scared and disconsolate, as she became more and
more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural
gaietf when I first strayed into her path, and of her being
my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I
would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar. >

T had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties,
but the same considerations made me keep them to myself .
I am far from sure, now, that it was right to do this, but 1
did it for my child-wife's sake 1 search my breast, and I

648 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

commit its secrets, if I know them, without any reservation
to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something
had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to
the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the
fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the
air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss
something of the realisation of my dreams ; but I thought
it was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing could
have thrown upon the present time. I did feel, sometimes,
for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been
my counsellor; had had more character and purpose, to
sustain me, and improve me by ; had been endowed with
power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be
about me ; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consum-
mation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be,
and never could have been.

I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the
softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than
those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as T
may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, and in my
want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail
me nothing to extenuate it now.

Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares
of our life, and had no partner in them. We lived much as
before, in reference to our scrambling household arrange
ments ; but I had got used to those, and Dora I was pleased
to see was seldom vexed now She was bright and cheer-
ful in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy
with her old trifles

When the debates were heavy" — I mean as to length, not
quality, for in the last respect they were not often otherwise
— and I went home late, Dora would never rest when she
heard my footsteps, but would always come down stairs to
meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pur-
suit, for which I h-ad qualified myself with so much pains,
and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit quietly
near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I
would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally,
when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me
with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken.

" Oh, what a weary boy ! " said Dora one night, when I
met her eyes as I was shutting up my desk.

" What a weary girl ! " said I " that's more to the pur

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 643

pose. You must go to bed another time, my love. It's
far too late for you."

"No, don't send me to bed! " pleaded Dora, coming to
my side. " Pray. don't do that! "

"Dora!"

To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck.

" Not well, my dear? not happy? "

" Yes ! quite well, and very happy ! " said Dora. " But
say you'll let me stop, and see you write."

" Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight ! "
I replied.

" Are they bright, though? " returned Dora, laughing.
"I'm so glad they're bright."

"Little Vanity!" said I.

But it was not vanity ; it was only harmless delight in
my admiration. I knew that very well, before she told
me so.

" If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and
see you write ! " said Dora. " Do you think them pretty? "

" Very pretty. "

"Then let me always stop and see you write."

" I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora."

"Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not for-
get me then, while you are full of silent fancies. Will you
mind it, if I say something very, very silly? — more than
usual? " inquired Dora, peeping over my shoulder into my
face.

" What wonderful thing is that? " said I.

"Please let me hold the pens," said Dora. "I want to
have something to do with all those many hours when you
are so industrious. May I hold the pens? "

The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said Yes,
brings tears into my eyes. The next time I sat down to
write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place,
with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in
this connexion with my work, and her delight when I
wanted a new pen — which I very often feigned to do —
suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I
occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of
manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The
preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she
put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off
the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she

650 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it all,
her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she
signed her name at the end, and the way in which she
would bring it to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I
praised it, clasp me round the neck, are touching recollec-
tions to me, simple as they might appear to other men.

She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went
jingling about the house with the whole bunch in a little
basket, tied to her slender waist. I seldom found that the
places to which they belonged were locked, or that they
were of any use except as a plaything for Jip — but Dora
was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied
that a good deal was effected by this make-belief of house-
keeping ; and was as merry as if we had been keeping a
baby-house, for a joke.

So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my
aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she
was afraid she was "a cross old thing." I never saw my
aunt unbend more systematically to any one. She courted
Jip, though Jip never responded ; listened, day after day,
to the guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for
music ; never attacked the Incapables, though the tempta-
tion must have been severe ; went wonderful distances on
foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she found
out Dora wanted ; and never came in by the garden, and
missed her from the room, but she would call out, at the
foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all
over the house :

"Where's Little Blossom !.»

CHAPTER XLV.

MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTIONS.

It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor.
Living in his neighbourhood, I saw him frequently ; and we
all went to his house on two or three occasions to dinner or
tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent quarters under the
Doctor's roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and the
«ame immortal butterflies hovered over her cap.

Like some other mothers^ whom I have known in the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 651

course of my !ife, Mrs. Marklehain was far more fond of
pleasure than her daughter was. She required a great deal
of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in
consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to
her child. The Doctor's desire that Annie should be
entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable to this
excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of
his discretion

I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's
wound without knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain
matured frivolity and selfishness, not always inseparable
from full-blown years, I think she confirmed him in his
fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, and that
there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so
strongly commending his design of lightening the load of
her life.

" My dear soul," she said to him one day when I was
present, " you know there is no doubt it would be a little
pokey for Annie to be always shut up here."

The Doctor nodded his benevolent head.

" When she comes to her mother's age," said Mrs. Mark-
lehain, with a flourish of her fan, " then it'll be another
thing. You might put me into a jail, with genteel society
and a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But
I am not Annie, you know; and Annie is not her mother."

" Surely, surely," said the Doctor.

" You are the best of creatures — no, 1 beg your pardon ! "
for the Doctor made a gesture of depreciation, " I must say
before your face, as I always say behind your back, you are
the best of creatures; but of course you don't — now do
you? — enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie? "

"No," said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone,

"No, of course not," retorted the Old Soldier. "Take
your Dictionary, for example. What a useful work a Dic-
tionary is! What a necessary work! The meanings of
words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that
sort, we might have been at this present moment calling
an Italian-iron a bedstead. But we can't expect a Diction-
ary— especially when it's making — to interest Annie, can
we?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"And that's why I so much approve," said Mrs. Mark*
leham, tapping him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan,

652 PERSONAL HISTORi AND EXPERIENCE

"of your thoughtfulness. It shows that you don't expect,
as many elderly people do expect, old heads on young
shoulders. You have studied Annie's character, and you
understand it. That's what I find so charming! "

Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong ex-
pressed some little sense of pain, I thought, under the
infliction of these compliments.

"Therefore, my dear Doctor," said the Soldier, giving
him several affectionate taps, "you may command me, at
all times and seasons. Now, do understand that I am
entirely at your service. I am ready to go with Annie to
operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places ; and you
shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor,
before every consideration in the universe ! "

She was as good as her word. She was one of those
people who can bear a great deal of pleasure, and she never
flinched in her perseverance in the cause. She seldom got
hold of the newspaper (which she settled herself down in
the softest chair in the house to read through an eye-glass,
every day, for two hours), but she found out something
that she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in
vain for Annie to protest that she was weary of such
things. Her mother's remonstrance always was, "Now,
my dear Annie, I am sure you know better ; and I must
tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return
for the kindness of Doctor Strong. "

This was usually said in the Doctor's presence, and ap-
peared to me to constitute Annie's principal inducement
for withdrawing her objections when she made any. But
in general she resigned herself to her mother, and went
where the Old Soldier would.

It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied
them. Sometimes my aunt and Dora were invited to do
so, and accepted the invitation. Sometimes Dora only was
asked. The time had been, when I should have been
uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed
that former night in the Doctor's study, had made a change
in my mistrust. I believed that the Doctor was right, and
I had no worse suspicions.

My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened
to be alone with me, and said she couldn't make it out ; she
wished they were happier ; she didn't think our military
friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) mended the

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 653

matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion,
" that if our military friend would cut off those butterflies,
and give 'em to the chimney-sweepers for May Day, it
would look like the beginning of something sensible on her
part."

But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man
had evidently an idea in his head, she said ; and if he could
only once pen it up into a corner, which was his great diffi-
culty, he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary
manner.

Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to
occupy precisely the same ground in reference to the Doc-
tor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed neither to advance nor
to recede. He appeared to have settled into his original
foundation, like a building ; and I must confess that my
faith in his ever moving, was not much greater than if he
had been a building.

But one night, when I had been married some months,
Mr. Dick put his head into the parlour, where I was writ-
ing alone (Dora having gone out with my aunt to take tea
with the two little birds), and said, with a significant
cough :

"You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing
yourself, Trotwood, I am afraid? "

"Certainly, Mr. Dick," said I; "come in! *

"Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side
of his nose, after he had shaken hands with me. " Before
I sit down, I wish to make an observation. You. know
your aunt? "

"A little," I replied.

" She is the most wonderful woman in the world, Sir ! "

After the delivery of this communication, which he shot
out of himself as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat
down with greater gravity than usual, and looked at
me.

"Now, boy," said Mr. Dick, "I am going to put a ques-
tion to you."

"As many as you please," said I.

"What do you consider me, Sir? " asked Mr. Dick, fold-
ing his arms.

"A dear old friend," said I.

"Thank you, Trotwood," returned Mr. Dick, laughing,
and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me.

654 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"But I mean, boy/' resuming his gravity, "what do you
consider me in this respect ? " touching his forehead.

I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a
word.

" Weak? " said Mr. Dick.

" Well," I replied, dubiously. "Rather so."

'•'Exactly! " cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted
by my reply. " That is, Trotwood, when they took some
of the trouble out of you-know-who's head, and put it you

know where, there was a " Mr. Dick made his two

hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of
times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled them
over and over one another, to express confusion. "There
was that sort of thing done to me somehow? Eh? "

I nodded at him, and he nodded back again.

"In short, boy," said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a
whisper, "I am simple."

I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me.

" Yes, I am ! She pretends I am not. She won't hear
of it; but I am. I know I am. If she hadn't stood my
friend, Sir, I should have been shut up, to lead a dismal
life these many years. But I'll provide for her ! I never
spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made
a will. I'll leave it all to her. She shall be rich — noble ! "

Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped
his eyes. He then folded it up with great care, pressed it
smooth between his two hands, put it in his pocket, and
seemed to put my aunt away with it.

"Now you are a scholar, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick.
" l"ou are a fine scholar. Yrou know what a learned man,
what a great man, the Doctor is. You know what honour
he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. Hum-
ble, humble — condescending even to poor Dick, who is
simple and knows nothing. I have sent his name up, on a
scrap of paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has
been in the sky, among the larks. The kite has been glad
to receive it, Sir, and the sky has been brighter with it. "

I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor
was deserving of our best respect and highest esteem.

"And his beautiful wife is a star," said Mr. Dick. "A
shining star. I have seen her shine, Sir. But," bringing
his chair nearer, and laving one hand upon my knee —
"clouds, Sir — clouds.'*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 655

I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by
conveying the same expression into my own, and shaking
my head.

" What clouds? " said Mr. Dick.

He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious
to understand, that 1 took great pains to answer him slowly
and distinctly, as I might have entered on an explanation
to a child.

"There is some unfortunate division between them," I
replied. " Some unhappy cause of separation. A secret.
It may be inseparable from the discrepancy in their years.
It may have grown up out of almost nothing."

Mr. Dick, who told off every sentence with a thoughtful
nod, paused when I had done, and sat considering, with
his eyes upon my face, and his hand upon my knee.

"Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood? " he said, after
some time.

"No. Devoted to her."

"Then, I have got it, boy! " said Mr. Dick,

The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the
knee, and leaned back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted
up as high as he could possibly lift them, made me think
him farther out of his wits than ever. He became as sud-
denly grave again, and leaning forward as before, said —
first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if
it really did represent my aunt :

" Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why
has she done nothing to set things right? "

"Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interfer-
ence," I replied.

"Fine scholar," said Mr. Dick, touching me with his
finger. " Why has he done nothing? "

" For the same reason," I returned.

" Then, I have got it, boy ! " said Mr. Dick. And he
stood up before me, more exultingly than before, nodding
his head, and striking himself repeatedly upon the breast,
until one might have supposed that he had nearly nodded
and struck all the breath out of his body.

"A poor fellow with a craze, Sir," said Mr. Dick, "a
simpleton, a weak-minded person — present company, you
know!" striking himself again, "may do what wonderful
people may not do. I'll bring them together, boy. I'll
try. Thev'll not blame me They'll not object to me.
I

656 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

They'll not mind what /do, if it's wrong. I'm only Mr.
Dick. And who minds Dick? Dick's nobody! Whoo!"
He blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew him-
self away.

It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mys-
tery, for we heard the coach stop at the little garden-gate,
which brought my aunt and Dora home.

" Not a word, boy ! " he pursued in a whisper ; " leave
all the blame with Dick — simple Dick— mad Dick. I have
been thinking, Sir, for some time, that I was getting it,
and now I have got it. After what you have said to me,
I am sure I have got it. All right ! "

Not another word did Mr. Dick utter on the subject; but
he made a very telegraph of himself for the next half -hour
(to the great disturbance of my aunt's mind), to enjoin in-
violable secrecy on me.

To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or
three weeks, though I was sufficiently interested in the
result of his endeavours ; descrying a strange gleam of good
sense — I say nothing of good feeling, for that he always ex-
hibited— in the conclusion to which he had come. At last I
began to believe, that, in the nighty and unsettled state of his
mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it.

One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out,
my aunt and I strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was
autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening
air ; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden
at Blunderstone as we trod them underfoot, and how the
old, unhappy feeling seemed to go by, on the sighing
wind.

It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs.
Strong was just coming out of the garden, where Mr. Dick
yet lingered, busy with his knife, helping the gardener to
point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with some
one in his study ; but the visitor would be gone directly,
Mrs. Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him.
We went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down
by the darkening window. There was never any ceremony
about the visits of such old friends and neighbours as we
were.

We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markie-
ham, who usually contrived to be in a fuss about something,
came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, and said.

OF DAVIir COPPERFIELD 657

out of breath, " My goodness gracious, Annie, why didn't
you tell me there was some one in the Study ! "

"My dear mama," she quietly returned, "how could I
know that you desired the information ! "

"Desired the information! " said Mrs. Markleham, sink-
ing on the sofa, " I never had such a turn in all my life ! "

" Have you been to the Study, then, mama? " askeo
Annie.

" Been to the Study, my dear ! " she returned emphati-
cally. " Indeed I have ! I came upon the amiable crea-
ture— if you'll imagine my feelings, Miss Trotwood and
David — in the act of making his will."

Her daughter looked round from the window quickly.

"In the act, my dear Annie, " repeated Mrs. Markleham,
spreading the newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and
patting her hands upon it, " of making his last Will and
Testament. The foresight and affection of the dear! I
must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the
darling — for he is nothing less! — tell you how it was.
Perhaps you know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a
candle lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally
falling out of one's head with being stretched to read the
paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in
which a paper can be what / call, read, except one in the
Study. This took me to the Study, where I saw a light.
I opened the door. In company with the dear Doctor were
two professional people, evidently connected with the law,
and they were all three standing at the table : the darling
Doctor pen in hand. ' This simply expresses then,' said
the Doctor — Annie, my love, attend to the very words —
'this simply expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence I
have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally? '
One of the professional people replied, ' And gives her all
unconditionally. ' Upon that, with the natural feelings of
a mother, I said, ' Good God, I beg your pardon! ' fell over
the doorstep, and came away through the little back-pas-
sage where the pantry is."

Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the
verandah, where she stood leaning against a pillar.

"But now isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invig-
orating," said Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her
with her eyes, "to find a man at Doctor Strong's time of
life, with the strength of mind to do this kind of thing?
42

658 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when
Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and
made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, I said,
* My dear, there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with
reference to a suitable provision for you, that Doctor Strong
will do more than he binds himself to do.' "

Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the vis-
itors' feet as they went out.

"It's all over, no doubt," said the old Soldier, after list-
ening ; " the dear creature has signed, sealed, and deliv-
ered, and his mind's at rest. Well it may be ! What a
mind ! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study with my
paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trot-
wood, David, pray come and see the Doctor."

I was conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of
the room, shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her
to the Study; and of my aunt's rubbing her nose violently,
by the way, as a mild vent for her intolerance of our mili-
tary friend ; but who got first into the Study, or how Mrs.
Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy- chair,
or how my aunt and I came to be left together near the
door (unless her eyes were quicker than mine, and she held
me back), I have forgotten, if I ever knew. But this I
know, — that we saw the Doctor before he saw us, sitting at
his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted,
resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same
moment, we saw Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and trembling.
That Mr. Dick supported her on. his arm. That he laid
his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look
up with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his
head, his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and,
with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the
memorable look I had never forgotten. That at this sight
Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more
like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The
Astonishment, then anything else I can think of.

The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the
dignity that mingled with the supplicating attitude of his
wife, the amiable concern of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness
with which my aunt said to herself, "That man mad!"
(triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had
saved him), I see and hear, rather than remember, as I
write about it.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 659

"Doctor!" said Mr. Dick. "What is it that's amiss?
Look here ! "

" Annie ! " cried the Doctor. " Not at ray feet, niy dear ! "

" Yes ! " she said. " I beg and pray that no one will
leave the room! Oh, my husband and father, break this
long silence. Let us both know what it is that has come
between us! "

Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of
speech, and seeming to swell with family pride and moth-
erly mdignation, here exclaimed, " Annie, get up immedi-
ately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to you by
humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me gc
out of my mind on the spot ! "

" Mama ! " returned Annie. " Waste no words on me,
for my appeal is to my husband, and even you are nothing
here."

. "Nothing!" exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. "Me, noth-
ing ! The child has taken leave of her senses. Please to get
me a glass of water ! "

I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give
any heed to this request; and it made no impression on
anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham panted, stared, and
fanned herself.

" Annie ! " said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his
hands. " My dear ! If any unavoidable change has come,
in the sequence of time, upon our married life, you are not
to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. There is no
change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to
make you happy. I truly love and honour you. Eise,
Annie, pray ! "

But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little
while, she sank down closer to him, laid her arm across
his knee, and dropping her head upon it, said :

" If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for
me, or for my husband, in this matter ; if I have any friend
here, who can give a voice to any suspicion that my heart
has sometimes whispered to me ; if I have any friend here,
who honours my husband, or has ever cared for me, and has
anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that
may help to mediate between us, — I implore that friend to
speak ! "

There was a profound silence. After a few moments of
painful hesitation, I broke the silence.

660 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Mrs. Strong," I said, "there is something within nr?
knowledge, which I hare been earnestly entreated by-
Doctor Strong to conceal, and have concealed until to-
night. But, I believe the time has come when it would
be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer,
and when your appeal absolves me from this injunc-
tion."

She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I
knew that I was right. I could not have resisted its
entreaty, if the assurance that it gave me had been less
convincing.

"Our future peace," she said, "may be in your hands.
I trust it confidently to your not suppressing anything. I
know beforehand that nothing you, or anyone, can tell me,
will show my husband's noble heart in any other light than
one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, disre-
gard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before
God afterwards."

Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the
Doctor for his permission, but, without any other compro-
mise of the truth than a little softening of the coarseness
of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had passed in that
same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Maxkleham
during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjec-
tions with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy
description.

When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few
moments, silent, with her head bent down, as I have
described. Then, she took the Doctor's hand (he was sit-
ting in the same attitude as when we had entered the room),
and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly
raised her ; and she stood, when she began to speak, lean-
ing on him, and looking down upon her husband — from
whom she never turned her eyes.

" All that has ever been in my mind, since I was mar-
ried," she said in a low, submissive, tender voice, "I will
lay bare before you. I could not live and have one reser-
vation, knowing what I know now."

"Nay, Annie," said the Doctor, mildly, "I have never
doubted you, my child. There is no need; indeed there
is no need, my dear."

"There is great need," she answered, in the same way,
" that I should open my whole heart before the sotiI of

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 661

generosity and truth, whom, year by year, and day by day,
I have loved and venerated more and more, as Heaven
knows ! "

"Really," interrupted Mrs. Markleham, "if I have any
discretion at all "

("Which you haven't, you Marplot," observed my aunt,
in an indignant whisper.)

—"I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be
requisite to enter into these details."

" No one but my husband can judge of that, mama," said
Annie, without removing her eyes from his face, " and he
will hear me. If I say anything to give you pain, mama,
forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and long, my-
self."

"'Upon my word! " gasped Mrs. Markleham.

"When I was very young," said Annie, "quite a little
child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind
were inseparable from a patient friend ■ and teacher — the
friend of my dead father — who was always dear to me. I
can remember nothing that I know, without remembering
him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and
stamped his character upon them all. They never could
have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I
had taken them from any other hands."

"Makes her mother nothing! " exclaimed Mrs. Markle-
ham.

" Not so, mama, " said Annie ; " but I make him what
he was. I must do that. As I grew up, he occupied the
same place still. I was proud of his interest: deeply,
fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to him I
can hardly describe how — as a father, as a guide, as one
whose praise was different from all other praise, as one in
whom I could have trusted and confided, if I had doubted
all the world. You know, mama, how young and inexpe-
rienced I was, when you presented him before me, of a
sudden, as a lover."

"I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to every,
body here! " said Mrs. Markleham.

("Then hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't
mention it any more ! " muttered my aunt. )

" It was so great a change : so great a loss, I felt it at
first," said Annie, still preserving the same look and tone,
"that I was agitated and distressed. I was but a girl; and

662 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

when so great a change came in the character in which I
had so long looked np to him, I think I was sorry. But
nothing could have made him what he used to be again ;
and I was proud that he should think me so worthy, and
we were married. "

" — At Saint Alphage, Canterbury, "observed Mrs. Mark
leham.

("Confound the woman!" said my aunt, "she wonH be
quiet!")

"I never thought," proceeded Annie, with a heightened
colour, " of any worldly gain that my husband would bring
to me. My young heart had no room in its homage for any
such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when I say that it
was you who first presented to my mind the thought that
anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel
suspicion."

"Me!" cried Mrs. Markleham.

("AJi! You, to be sure! " observed my aunt, "and you
can't fan it away, my military friend ! ")

"It was the first unhappiness of my new life," said
Annie. " It was the first occasion of every unhappy mo«
ment I have known. Those moments have been more, of
late, than I can count; but not — my generous husband! —
not for the reason you suppose ; for in my heart there is
not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power
could separate from you ! "

She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked
as beautiful and true, I thought, as any Spirit The Doc-
tor looked on her, henceforth, as steadfastly as she on him.

"Mama is blameless," she went on, "of having ever
urged you for herself, and she is blameless in intention
every way, I am sure, — but when I saw how many impor-
tunate claims were pressed upon you in my name ; how yo^
were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and
how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at
heart, resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the
mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought — and sole?
to you, of all men, on earth — fell upon me, like unmerited
disgrace, in which I forced you to participate I cannot
tell you what it was — mama cannot imagine what it was —
to have this dread and trouble always on my mind, yet know
in my own soul that on my marriage-day T crowned the love
and honour of my life -

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 663

"A specimen of the thanks one gets," cried Mrs. Markle-
hani, in tears, "for taking care of one's family! I wish I
was a Turk!"

(" I wish you were, with all my heart — and in yonr native
country! " said my aunt.)

" It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about
my cousin Maldon. I had liked him : " she spoke softly,
but without any hesitation: "very much. We had been
little lovers once. If circumstances had not happened oth-
erwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really
loved him, and might have married him, and been most
wretched. There can be no disparity in marriage like
unsuitability of mind and purpose."

I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously
attending to what followed, as if they had some particular
interest, or some strange application that I could not divine.
" There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of
mind and purpose " — "nd disparity in marriage like unsuit-
ability of mind and purpose."

"There is nothing," said Annie, "that we have in com-
mon. I have long found that there is nothing. If I were
thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so
much, I should be thankful to him for having saved me
from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined
heart."

She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with
an earnestness that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as
quiet as before.

" When he was waiting to be the object of your munifi-
cence, so freely bestowed for my sake, and when I was
unhappy in the mercenary shape I was made to wear, I
thought it would have become him better to have worked
his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would
have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship.
But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his
departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and
thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, in Mr.
Wickfield's scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time,
the dark suspicion that shadowed my life."

" Suspicion, Annie ! " said the Doctor. " No, no, no ! "

"In your mind there was none, I know, my husband! "
she returned. " And when I came to you, that night, to
lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that I

664 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

had to tell, that, underneath your roof, one of my own
kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love
of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no
utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary
wretch he thought me — my mind revolted from the taint
the very tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from
that hour till now has never passed them."

Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her
easy chair; and retired behind her fan, as if she were never
coming out any more.

"I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a
word with him from that time ; then, only when it has
been necessary for the avoidance of this explanation.
Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his situa-
tion here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for
his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise
and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but aggravations
of the unhappiness and burden of my secret."

She sank down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did
his utmost to prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully,
into his face :

" Do not speak to me yet ! Let me say a little more !
Eight or wrong, if this were to be done again, I think I
should do just the same. Yrou never can know what it was
to be devoted to you, with those old associations ; to find
that anyone could be so hard as to suppose that the truth
of my heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by
appearances confirming that belief. I was very young, and
had no adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating te
you, there was a wide division. If I shrank into myself,
hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I
honoured you so much, and so much wished that you should
honour me ! "

" Annie, . my pure heart ! " said the Doctor, " my dear
girl!"

"A little more! a very few words more! I used to
think there were so many whom you might have married,
who would not have brought such charge and trouble on
you, and who would have made your home a worthier
home. I used to be afraid that I had better have remained
your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I
was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this
made me shrink within mvself (*s indeed it did), when I

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 665

had that to tell, it was still because I honoured you so
much, and hoped that you might one day honour me."

"That day has shone this long time, Annie," said the
Doctor, " and can have but one long night, my dear. "

"Another word! I afterwards meant — steadfastly
meant, and purposed to myself — to bear the whole weight
of knowing the unworthiness of one to whom you had been
so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of friends !
The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen
with so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred
to my old apprehension — at other times to lingering sup-
positions nearer to the truth — has been made clear to-night ;
and by an accident I have also come to know, to-night, the
full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that
mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may
render in return, will ever make me worthy of your price-
less confidence ; but with all this knowledge fresh upon me,
I can lift my eyes to this dear face, revered as a father's,
loved as a husband's, sacred to me in my childhood as a
friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest thought
I had never wronged you ; never wavered in the love and
the fidelity I owe you ! "

She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant
his head down over her, mingling his grey hair with her
dark brown tresses.

" Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband ! Never cast
me out! Do not think or speak of disparity between us,
for there is none, except in all my many imperfections.
Every succeeding year I have known this better, as 1 have
esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart,
my husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it
endures ! "

In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up
to Mr. Dick, without at all hurrying herself, and gave him
a hug and a sounding kiss. And it was very fortunate,
with a view to his credit, that she did so ; for I am confi-
dent that I detected him at that moment in the act of
making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate
expression of delight.

" You are a very remarkable man, Dick ! " said my aunt,
with an air of unqualified approbation; "and never pre-
tend t;o be anything else, for I know better! "

With that, my aunt pulled him bv the sleeve, and nod

6Q6 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ded to me ; and we three stole quietly out of the room, and
came away.

" That's a settler for our military friend, at any rate,"
said my aunt, on the way home. "I should sleep the bet-
ter for that, if there was nothing else to be glad of ! "

"She was quite overcome, I am afraid," said Mr. Dick,
with great commiseration.

" What ? Did you ever see a crocodile overcome ? "
inquired my aunt.

"I don't think I ever saw a crocodile," returned Mr
Dick, mildly.

a There never would have been anything the matter, it
it hadn't been for that old Animal," said my aunt, with
strong emphasis. " It's very much to be wished that some
mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage,
and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think
the only return that can be made them for bringing an
unfortunate young woman into the world — God bless my
soul, as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come!— is
full liberty to worry her out of it again. What are you
thinking of, Trot? "

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was
still running on some of the expressions used. " There can
be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and
purpose." "The first mistaken impulse of an undisci-
plined heart. " " My love was founded on a rock. " But we
were at home ; and the trodden leaves were lying under-
foot, and the autumn wind was blowing.

CHAPTER XLVI.

INTELLIGENCE.

I must have been married, if I may trust to my imper-
fect memory for dates, about a year or so, when one even-
ing, as I was returning from a solitary walk, thinking of
the book I was then writing— for my success had steadily
increased with my steady application, and I was engaged
at that time upon my first work of fiction — I came past
Mrs. Steerforth's house. I had often passed it before, dur-
ing my residence in that neighbourhood, though never when

OF DAVID COrPERFIELD 667

I could choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes
happen that it was not easy to find another, without mak-
ing a long circuit ; and so I had passed that way, upon the
whole, pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I
went by with a quickened step. It had been uniformly
gloomy and dull. None of the best rooms abutted on the
road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned win
dows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very
dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn
down. There was a covered way across a little paved court
to an entrance that was never used ; and there was one
round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the
only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccu-
pied blank look. I do not remember that I ever saw a
light in all the house. If I had been a casual passer-by,
I should have probably supposed that some childless person
lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge
of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state,
I should have pleased my fancy with many ingenious spec-
ulations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my
mind could not go by it and leave it, as my body did ; and
it usually awakened a long train of meditations. Coming
before me, on this particular evening that I mention,
mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies,
the ghosts of half -formed hopes, the broken shadows of
disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending
of experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation
with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than
commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I
walked on, and a voice at my side made me start.

It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recol
iecting Mrs. Steerforth's little parlour-maid, who had for-
merly worn blue ribbons in her cap. She had taken them
out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to the altered charac-
ter of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate
bows of sober brown.

" If you please, Sir, would you have the goodness to walk
in, and speak to Miss Dartle? "

" Has Miss Dartle sent you for me ? " I inquired.

'"'Not to-night, Sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle
saw you pass a night or two ago : and I was to sit at work

663 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

on the staircase, and when 1 saw you pass again, to as&
you to step in and speak to her. "

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went
along, how Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was
but poorly, and kept her own room a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss
Dartle in the garden, and left to make my presence known
to her myself. She was sitting on a seat at one end of a
kind of terrace, overlooking the great city It was a som-
bre evening, with a lurid light in the sky ; and as I saw the
prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some
larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was
no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to
receive me. I thought her, then, still more colourless and
thin than when I had seen her last ; the flashing eyes still
brighter, and the scar still plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We bad parted angrily on
the last occasion : and there was an air of disdain about
her, which she took no pains to conceal.

"lam told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle ; " said
I, standing near her, with my hand upon the back of the
seat, and declining her gesture of invitation to sit down.

" If you please," said she. " Pray has this girl been
found? "

"No."

"And yet she has run away! "

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as
if they were eager to load her with reproaches

" Run away? " I repeated.

"Yes! From him," she said, with a laugh. " If she is
not found, perhaps she never will be found. She may be
dead!"

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, 1
never saw expressed in any other face that ever I have
seen.

"To wish her dead," said I, "may be the kindest wish
that one of her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad
that time has softened you so much, Miss Dartle "

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me
with another scornful laugh, said :

" The friends of this excellent and muGh-injured young
lady are friends of yours. You are their champion, and

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 669

assert their rights. Do you wish to know what is known
of her? "

"Yes," said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few
steps towards a wall of holly that was near at hand, divid-
ing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice,
" Come here ! " — as if she were calling to some unclean
beast.

" You will restrain any demonstrative championship or
vengeance in this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield? " said
she, looking over her shoulder at me with the same expres-
sion.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant ;
and she said, " Come here ! " again ; and returned, followed
by the respectable Mr. Littimer, who, with undiminished
respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position
behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in
which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine
and alluring : with which she reclined upon the seat be-
tween us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel princess
in a legend.

"Now," said she, imperiously, without glancing at him,
and touching the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in
this instance, with pleasure rather than pain. " Tell Mr.
Copperfield about the flight."

"Mr. James and myself, ma'am "

" Don't address yourself to me ! " she interrupted with a
frown.

" Mr. James and myself, Sir "

"Nor to me, if you please," said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified
by a slight obeisance, that anything that was most agree-
able to us was most agreeable to him ; and began again :

"Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the
young woman, ever since she left Yarmouth under Mr.
James's protection. We have been in a variety of places,
and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in
France, Switzerland, Italy — in fact, almost all parts."

He looked at the back of the seat-, as if he were address-
ing himself to that; and softly played upon it with his
hands, as if he were striking chords upon a dumb piano.

" Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman ,
and was more settled, for a length of time, than I have

670 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

known him to be since I have been in his service. The
young woman was very improvable, and spoke the lan-
guages ; and wouldn't have beep known for the same coun-
try-person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever
we went."

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal
a glance at her, and slightly smile to himself.

"Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was.
What with her dress; what with the air and sun; what
with being made so much of ; what with this, that, and the
other; her merits really attracted general notice."

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly
over the distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop
that busy mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them
within the other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Lit-
timer proceeded, with his eyes cast down, and his respec-
table head a little advanced, and a little on one side :

" The young woman went on in this manner for some
time, being occasionally low in her spirits, until I think
she began to weary Mr. James by giving way to her low
spirits and tempers of that kind; and things were not so
comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again
The more restless he got, the worse she got ; and I must
say, for myself, that I had a very difficult time of it indeed
between the two. Still matters were patched up here, and
made good there, over and over again; and altogether
lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could
have expected."

Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me
again now, with her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his
throat behind his hand with a respectable short cough,
changed legs, and went on :

" At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good
many words and reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morn-
ing, from the neighbourhood of Naples, where we had a
villa (the young woman being very partial to the sea), and,
under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in
charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happi-
ness of all concerned, he was " — here an interruption of the
short cough — "gone. But Mr. James, I must say, cer-
tainly did behave extremely honourable ; for he proposed
that the young woman should marry a very respectable

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 671

person, who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and
who was, at least, as good as anybody the young woman
could have aspired to in s regular way: her connexions
being very coninion."

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was con-
vinced that the scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my
conviction reflected in Miss Dartle's face.

4 This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was
billing to do anything to relieve Mr. James from his diffi-
culty, and to restore harmony between himself and an affec
tionate parent, who has undergone so much on his account.
Therefore I undertook the commission. The young wo-
man's violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of
his departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite
mad, and had to be held by force ; or, if she couldn't have
got to a knife, or got to the sea, she'd have beaten her
head against the marble floor."

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of
exultation in her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds
this fellow had uttered.

" But when I came to the second part of what had been
entrusted to me," said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands,
uneasily, " which anybody might have supposed would have
been, at all events, appreciated as a kind intention, then
the young woman came out in her true colours. A more
outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was sur-
prisingly bad. She had no more gratitude, no more feel-
ing, no more patience, no more reason in her, than a stock
or a stone. If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am con-
vinced she would have had my blood."

" I think the better of her for it," said I, indignantly.

Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, " indeed.
Sir? But you're young! " and resumed his narrative.

"It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take awa\
everything nigh her, that she could do herself, or anybody
else, an injury with, and to shut her up close. Notwith-
standing which, she got out in the night ; forced the lattice
of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on a
vine that was trailed below ; and never has been seen or
heard of, to my knowledge, since."

" She is dead, perhaps," said Miss Dartle, with a smile,
as if she could have spurned the body of the ruined girl.

"She may have drowned herself, miss," returned Mi,

672 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Littimer, catching at an excuse for addressing himself to
somebody. "It's very possible. Or, she may have had
assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives and
children. Being given to low company, she was very much
in the habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle,
and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it, when
Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was
far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the
children she was a boatman's daughter, and that in her
own country, long ago, she had roamed about the beach
like them."

Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose
before me of her sitting on the far-off shore, among the
children like herself when she was innocent, listening to
little voices such as might have called her Mother had she
been a poor man' s wife ; and to the great voice of the sea,
with its eternal " Never more ! "

"When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss
Dartle »

"Did I tell you not to speak tome?" she said, with
stern contempt.

"You spoke to me, miss," he replied "I beg your par-
don. But it is my service to obey.,,

"Do your service," she returned. "Finish your story,
and go ! "

"When it was clear," he said, with infinite respectabil-
ity, and an obedient bow, "that she was not to be found, I
went to Mr. James, at the place where it had been agreed
;hat I should write to him, and informed him of what had
Dccurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and
I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could bear,
and I have borne, a great deal from Mr. James ; but he
insulted me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortu-
nate difference between himself and his mother^ and what
her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of
coming home to England, and relating "

"For money which I paid him," said Miss Dartle to me.

"Just so, ma'am — and relating what I knew. 1 am not
aware," said Mr. Littimer, after a moment's reflection,
"that there is anything else. I am at present out of em-
ployment, and should be happy to meet with a respectable
situation "

Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire

OF DAVID C0PPEKF1ELD. 673

if there were anything that I desired to ask. As there
was something which had occurred to my mind, I said in

reply i

" I could wish to know from this— creature," I could not
bring myself to utter any more conciliatory word, "whether
they intercepted a letter that was written to her from home,
or whether he supposes that she received it."

He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the
ground, and the tip of every finger of his right hand deli-
sately poised against the tip of every finger of his left.

Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him.

" I beg your pardon, miss," he said, awakening from his
abstraction, "but, however submissive to you, I have my
position, though a servant. Mr. Copperfield and you, miss,
are different people. If Mr. Copperfield wishes to know
anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr.
Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a
character to maintain."

After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my
eyes upon him, and said, "You have heard my question.
Consider it addressed to yourself, if you choose. What
answer do you make? "

" Sir," he rejoined, with an occasional separation ana
reunion of those delicate tips, " my answer must be quali-
fied; because, to betray Mr. James's confidence to his
mother, and to betray it to you, are two different actions.
It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would encour-
age the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and
unpleasantness; but further than that, Sir, I should wish
to avoid going."

" Is that all? " inquired Miss Dartle of me. ^

I indicated that I had nothing more to say. "Except,;
I added, as I saw him moving off, "that I understand this
fellow's part in the wicked story, and that, as I shall make
it known to the honest man who has been her father from
her childhood, 1 would recommend him to avoid going too
much into public." ,

He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened
with his usual repose of manner.

" Thank you, Sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, feir,
that there are neither slaves nor slave-drivers m this coun-
try, and that people are not allowed to take the law into
their own hands If they do. it is more to their own peril,
43

674 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I believe, than to other people's. Consequently speak
ing, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish
Sir."

With that, he made a polite bow ; and, with another to
Miss Dartle, went away through the arch in the wall oi
holly by which he had come. Miss Dartle and I regarded
each other for a little while in silence ; her manner being
exactly what it was, when she had produced the man.

" He says besides," she observed, with a slow curling of
her lip, ' that his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain ;
and this done, is away to gratify his seafaring tastes till he
is weary. But that is of no interest to you. Between these
two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach
than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one
at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperi-
ous. Neither is this of any interest to you ; but it intro-
duces what I wish to say. This devil whom you make an
angel of, I mean this low girl whom he picked out of the
tide-mud," with her black eyes full upon me, and her pas-
sionate ringer up, "may be alive, — for I believe some com-
mon things are hard to die. If she is, you will desire to
have a pearl of such price found and taken care of. We
desire that, too ; that he may not by any chance be made
her prey again. So far, we are united in one interest; and
that is why I, who would do her any mischief that so coarse
a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear
what you have heard."

I saw, by the change of her face, that some one was
advancing behind me. It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave
me her hand more coldly than of yore, and with an aug-
mentation of her former stateliness of manner; but still, I
perceived — and I was touched by it — with an ineffaceable
remembrance of my old love for her son. She was greatly
altered. Her fine figure was far less upright, her hand-
some face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost
white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a
handsome lady still ; and well I knew the bright eye with
its lofty look, that had been a light in my very dreams at
school.

" Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything Rosa? *

"Yes."

" And has he heard Littimer himself? "

" Yes; 1 have told him why vou wished it.*

OF DAVIT) COPPERFIELT). 675

u You are a good girl. I have had some slight corre-
spondence with your former friend, Sir," addressing me,
" but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obliga-
tion. Therefore I have no other object in this, than what
Rosa has mentioned. If, by the course which may relieve
the mind of the decent man you brought here (for whom
I am sorry — I can say no more), my son may be saved
from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy,
well!"

She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her,
far away.

a Madam," I said respectfully, " I understand. I assure
you I am in no danger of putting any strained construction
on your motives. But I must say, even to you, having
known this injured family from childhood, that if you sup-
pose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly
deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than
take a cup of water from your son's hand now, you cherish
a terrible mistake."

"Well, Rosa, well!" said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other
was about to interpose, " it is no matter. Let it be You
are married, Sir, I am told? "

I answered that I had been some time married.

"And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I
lead, but I understand you are beginning to be famous."

" I have been very fortunate," I said, " and find my name
connected with some praise."

" You have no mother? " — in a softened voice

"No."

"It is a pity," she returned "She would have been
proud of you. Good night ! "

I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending
air, and it was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at
peace. Her pride could still its very pulses, it appeared,
and draw the placid veil before her face, through which
she sat looking straight before her on tho far distance.

As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could
not help observing how steadily they both sat gazing on
the prospect, and how it thickened and closed around them.
Here and there, some early lamps were seen to twinkle in
the distant city ; and in the eastern quarter of the sky the
lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of
the broad valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea,

676 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem as if the
gathering waters would encompass them. I have reason to
remember this, and think of it with awe«; for before I
looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to
their feet.

Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right
that it should be communicated to Mr. Peggotty, On the
following evening I went into London in quest of him. He
was always wandering about from place to place, with his
one object of recovering his niece before him; but was
more m London than elsewhere. Often and often, now,
had I seen him in the dead of night passing along the
streets, searching, among the few who loitered out of doors
at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find.

He kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in
Hungerford Market, which I have had occasion to mention
more than once, and from which he first went forth upon
his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On
making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the
house that he had not gone out yet, and I should find him
in his room up-sta'irs.

He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a
few plants. The room was very neat and orderly. I saw
in a moment that it was always kept prepared for her re-
ception, and that he never went out but he thought it pos-
sible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap
at the door; and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand
upon his shoulder.

" Mas'r Davy ! Thank'ee, Sir ! thank'ee hearty, for this
visit! Sit ye down. You're kindly welcome, Sir! "

" Mr. Peggotty," said I, taking the chair he handed me
"don't expect much! I have heard some news."

"Of Eni'ly!"

He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth,
and turned pale, as he fixed his eyes on mine.

"It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with
him."

He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in
profound silence to all I had to tell. I well remember the
sense of dignity, beauty even, with which the patient grav-
ity of his face impressed me, when, having gradually re-
moved his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, lean-
;ng his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption,

Of DAVID COPPERFIELD. 677

but remained throughout perfectly still. He seemed to
pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every
other shape go by him, as if it were nothing.

When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued
silent. I looked out of the window for a little while, and
occupied myself with the plants.

" How do you fare to feel about it, Mas'r Davy? " he in-
quired at length.

" I think that she is living," I replied.

" I doen't know. Maybe the first shock was too rough,

and in the wildness of her 'art ! That there blue water

as she used to speak on. Could she have thowt o' that so
many year, because it was to be her grave ! "

He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and
walked across the little room.

"And yet," he added, "Mas'r Davy, I have felt so sure
as she was living — I have know'd, awake and sleeping, as
it was* so trew that I should find her — I have been so led on
by it, and held up by it — that I doen't believe I can have
been deceived. No! Em' ly's alive!"

He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his
sunburnt face into a resolute expression.

"My niece, Em'ly, is alive, Sir!" he said steadfastly.
"I doen't know wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but 1
am told as she's alive ! "

He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I
waited for a few moments, until he could give me his undi-
vided attention ; and then proceeded to explain the precau-
tion, that, it had occurred to me last night, it would be
wise to take.

"Now, my dear friend " I began.

"Thank'ee, thank'ee, kind Sir," he said, grasping nry
hand in both of his.

" If she should make her way to London, which is likely
-. -for where could she lose herself so readily as in this vast
city ; and what would she wish to do, but lose and hide
herself, if she does not go home? "

"And she won't go home," he interposed, shaking his
head mournfully. " If she had left of her own accord, she
might; not as 'twas, Sir."

"If she should come here," said I, "I believe there is
one person, here, more likely to discover her than any other
in the world. Do you remember — hear what I say, with

678 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

fortitude — think of your great object! — do you remembei
Martha?"

" < )i our town? "

{ needed no other answer than his face

*' Do you know that she is in London? "

" I have seen her in the streets," he answered with a shiver

"But you don't know," said I, "that Emily was charit
able to her, with Ham's help, long before she fled from home
Nor, that, when we met one night, and spoke together ir
the room yonder, over the way, she listened at the door. "

"Mas'r Davy?" he replied in astonishment. "That
aight when it snew so hard? " '

" That night. I have never seen her since. I went back,
after parting from you, to speak to her, but she was gone.
I was unwilling to mention her to you then, and I am now ;
but she is the person of whom. I speak, and with whom I
think we should communicate. Do you understand? "

"Too well, Sir," he replied We had sunk our voices,
almost to a whisper, and continued to speak in that tone.

" You say you have seen her. Do you think that you
could rind her? T could only hope to do so by chance."

" I think, Mas'r Davy, I know wheer to look."

" It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and
try to find her to-night? "

He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without
appearing to observe what he was doing, I saw how care-
fully he adjusted the little room, put a candle ready and
the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and finally took
out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remembered to have
seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments,
and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair. He made no
allusion to these clothes, neither did I There they had
been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt.

"The time was, Mas' r Davy," he said, as we came
down stairs, " when I thowt this girl, Martha, a' most like
the dirt underneath my Em'ly's f^et God forgive me,
there's a difference now! "

As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation,
and partly to satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He
said, almost in the same words as formerly, that Ham was
just the same, "wearing away his life with kiender no care
nohow for't; but never murmuring, and liked by all."

I asked him what he thought Hair's state of mind was,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELia 679

in reference to the cause of their misfortunes? Whether he
believed it was dangerous? What he supposed, for ex*
ample, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should en-
counter?

"I doen't know, Sir/' he replied. UI have thowt of it
oftentimes, but I can't arrize myself of it, no matters."

I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her de-
parture, when we were all three on the beach. " Do you
recollect," said I. "a certain wild way in which he looked
out to sea, and spoke about 'the end of it? ' w

"Sure I do!" said he.

" What do you suppose he meant? "

"Mas'r Davy," he replied, "I've put the question to
myself a inort o' times, and never found no answer. And
theer's one curous thing — that, though he is so pleasant,
I wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try and get his mind
upon't. He never said a wured to me as warn't as dootiful
as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he'd begin to
speak any other ways now ; aat it's fur from being fleet
water in his mind, where them thowts lay. It's deep, Sir,
and I can't see down."

"You are right," said I, "and that has sometimes made
me anxious."

"And me too, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined. "Even more
so, I do assure you, than his ventersome ways, though both
belongs to the alteration in him. I doen't know as he'd
do violence under any circumstances, but I hope as them
two may be kep asunders."

We had come, through Temple Bar, into the City. Con-
versing no more now, and walking at my side, he yielded
himself up to the one aim of his devoted life, and went on,
with that hushed concentration of his faculties which would
have made his figure solitary in a multitude. We were not
far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and
pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the oppo-
site side of the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure
that we sought.

We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her,
when it occurred to me that she might be more disposed to
feel a woman's interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her
in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we
should be less observed. I advised my companion, there-
fore, that we should not address her yet, but follow her;

6S0 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to
know where she went.

He acquiescing, we followed at a distance : never losing
sight of her, but never caring to come very near, as she fre-
quently looked about. Once she stopped to listen to a
band of music ; and then we stopped too.

She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was
evident, from the manner in which she held her course, that
she was going to some fixed destination; and this, and her
Keeping in the busy streets, and I suppose the strange fas
cination in the secrecy and mystery of so following anyone^
made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she turned
into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were
lost ; and I said, " We may speak to her now ; " and, mend-
ing our pace, we went after her

CHAPTER XLV1L

MARTHA.

We were now down in Westminster. We had turned
back to follow her, having encountered her coming towards
us ; and Westminster Abbey was the point at which she
passed from the lights and noise of the leading streets.
She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two cur-
rents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge,
that, between this and the advance she had of us when she
struck off, we were in the narrow water-side street by Mill-
bank before we came up with her. At that moment she
crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard
so close behind ; and, without looking back, passed on even
more rapidly.

A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where
some waggons were housed for the night, seemed to arrest
my feet. I touched my companion without speaking, and
'we both forbore to cross after her, and both followed on
that opposite side of the way ; keeping as quietly as we
could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her.

There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-
lying street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably
an obsolete old ferry-house. Its position is just at that

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 681

point where the street ceases, and the road begins to lie
between a row of houses and the river. As soon as she
came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had
come to her destination ; and presently went slowly along
by the brink of the river, looking intently at it.

All the way here, I had supposed that she was going4o
some house ; indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope
that the house might be in some way associated with the
lost girl. But that one dark glimpse of the river, through
the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going
no farther.

The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time ; as op-
pressive, sad, and solitary by night, as any about London.
There were neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy
waste of road near the great blank prison. A sluggish
ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass
and rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the
vicinity. In one part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously
begun and never finished, rotted away. In another, the
ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-
boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors,
diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange
objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in
the dust, underneath which — having sunk into the soil of
their own weight in wet weather* — they had the appearance
of vainly trying to hide themselves. The clash and glare
of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose by night to
disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke
that poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and cause-
ways, winding among old wooden piles, with a sickly sub-
stance clinging to the latter, like green hair, and the rags
of last year's handbills offering rewards for drowned men
fluttering above high-water-mark, led down through the
ooze and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a story that one
of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague
was hereabout ; and a blighting influence seemed to have
proceeded from it over the whole place. Or else it looked
as if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare con-
dition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream.

As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and
left to corruption and decay, the girl we had followed
strayed down co the river's brink, and stood in the midst of
this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the water.

.682 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

There were some boats and barges astrand in the nmd
and these enabled us to come within a few yards of he*
without being seen. I then signed to Mr. Peggotty to re
main where he was, and emerged from their shade to speak
to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without trem-
bling ; for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the
way in which she stood, almost within the cavernous shadow
of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly reflected
in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me.

I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although
absorbed in gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her
shoulders, and that she was muffling her hands in it, in an
unsettled and bewildered way, more like the action of a
sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and never can
forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave
me no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes,
Until I had her arm within my grasp.

At the same moment I said " Martha ! "

She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me
with such strength that I doubt if I could have held her
alone. Bat a stronger hand than mine was laid upon her;
and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it
was, she made but one more effort and dropped down be-
tween us. We carried her away from the water to where
there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, cry-
ing and moaning. In a little while she sat among the
stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands.

" Oh, the river ! " she cried passionately. " Oh, the
river ! "

" Hush, hush ! " said I. " Calm yourself. "

But she still repeated the same words, continually ex-
claiming, " Oh, the river! " over and over again

"I know it's like me! " she exclaimed. "I know 5hat I
belong to it. I know that it's the natural company of such
as I am ! It comes from country places, where there was
once no harm in it — and -it creeps through the dismal
streets, defiled and miserable — and it goes away, like my
life, to a great sea, that is always troubled — and I feel that
I must go with it ! "

I have never known what despair was, except in the tone
of those words.

" I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts
me day and night It's the only thing in all the world

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 683

that ... am fit for, or that's fit for me. Oh, the dreadful
river ! "

The thought passed through my mind that in the face of
my companion, as he looked upon her without speech or
motion, I might have read his niece's history, if I had
known nothing of it. I never saw, in any painting or real-
ity, horror and compassion so impressively blended. He
shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand — I touched
it with my own, for his appearance alarmed me — was
deadly cold.

'• She is in a state of frenzy," I whispered to him. " She
will speak differently in a little time."

I don't know what he would have said in answer. He
made some motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he
had spoken ; but he had only pointed to her with his out-
stretched hand.

A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she
once more hid her face among the stones, and lay before
us, a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin. Knowing
that this state must pass, before we could speak to her
with any hope, I ventured to restrain hini when he would
have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she be-
came more tranquil.

" Martha," said I then, leaning down, and helping her to
rise — she seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of
going away, but she was weak, and leaned against a boat.
"Do you know who this is, who is with me? "

She said faintly, "Yes."

" Do you know that we have followed you a long way to-
night? "

She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at
me, but stood in a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and
shawl in one hand, without appearing conscious of them,
and pressing the other, clenched, against her forehead.

"Are you composed enough," said I, "to speak on the
subject which so interested you — I hope Heaven may re-
member it! — that snowy night? "

Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inar-
ticulate thanks to me for not having driven her away from
the door.

" I want to say nothing for myself," she said, after a few
moments. " I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all.
But tell hiiu, Sir," she had shrunk away from him, "if you

684 PERSONAL HISiOR\ AND EXPERIENCE

don't ieel too bard to me to do it, that 1 never was in an^
way the cause of his misfortune."

"It has never been attributed to you/' I returned, ear-
nestly responding to her earnestness.

"It was you, if I don't deceive myself/' she said, in a
broken voice, " that came into the kitchen, the night she
took such pity on me; was so gentle to me; didn't shrink
away from me like all the rest, and gave me such kind
help ! Was it you, Sir? "

"It was," said I.

"I should have been in the river long ago," she said,
glancing at it with a terrible expression, " if any wrong to
her had been upon my mind. I never could have kept out
of it a single winter's night, if I had not been free of any
share in that ! "

"The cause of her flight is too well understood," I said.
" You are innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly be-
lieve,— we know."

"Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had
had a better heart ! " exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn
regret ; " for she was always good to me ! She never spoke
a word to me but what was pleasant and right. Is it likely
I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing what
I am myself so well ! When I lost everything that makes
life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted
for ever from her ! "

Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of
the boat, and his eyes cast down, put Ms disengaged hand
before his face.

"And when I heard what had happened before that
snowy night, from some belonging to our town," cried
Martha, " the bitterest thought in all my mind was, that
the people would remember she once kept company with
me, and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven
knows, I would have died to have brought back her good
name ! "

Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of
her remorse and grief was terrible.

"To have died, would not have been much — what can 1
say? — I would have lived ! " she cried. " I would have lived
to be old, in the wretched streets — and to wander about,
avoided, in the dark — and to see the day break on the
ghastly line of houses, and remember how the same sun

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 685

used to shine into my room, and wake me once — I would
have done even that to save her ! "

Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and
clenched them up, as if she would have ground them
She> writhed into some new posture constantly: stiffening
her arms, twisting them before her face, as though to shut
out from her eyes the little light there was, and drooping
her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollec
tions.

" What shall I ever do ! " she said, fighting thus with her
despair. " How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to
myself, a living disgrace to everyone I come near ! " Sud-
denly she turned to my companion. " Stamp upon me, kill
me ! When she was your pride, you would have thought I
had done her harm if I had brushed against her in the
street. You can't believe — why should you? — a syllable
that comes out of my lips. It would be a burning shame
upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a word. I
don't complain. I don't say she and I are alike. I know
there is, a long, long way between us. I only say, with all
my guilt and wretchedness upon my head, that I am grate-
ful to her from my soul, and love her. Oh don't think
that all the power I had of loving anything is quite worn
out ! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for
being what I am, and having ever known her ; but don't
think that of me ! "

He looked upon her, while she made this supplication
in a wild distracted manner ; and, when she was silent,
gently raised her.

"Martha," said Mr. Peggotty, "God forbid as I should
judge you. Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my
girl! You doen't know half the change that's come, in
course of time, upon me, when you think it likely. Well ! "
he paused a moment, then weut on. " You doen't under-
stand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has wished
to speak to you. You doen't understand what 'tis we has
afore us. Listen now ! "

His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrink -
ingly, before him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes ;
but her passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute.

"If you heerd," said Mr. Peggotty, " owt of what passed
between Mas'r Davy and me, th' night when it snew so
hard, you know as I have been — wheer not — fur to seek my

686 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

dear niece. My dear niece," he repeated steadily. "'Fur
she's more dear to me now, Martha, than ever she was dear
■afore."

She put her Hands before her face; but otherwise re-
mained quiet.

" I have heerd her tell," said Mr. Peggotty, "as you was
early left fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to
take, in a rough seafaring way, their place. Maybe you
can guess that if you'd had such a friend, you'd have got
into a way of being fond of him in course of time, and that
my niece was kiender daughter-like to me."

As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl care-
fully about her, taking it up from the ground for that pur
pose.

"Whereby," said he, " I know, both as she would go to
the wureld's furdest end with me, if she could once see me
again; and that she would fly to the wureld's furdest end
to keep off seeing me. For though she ain't "no call to
doubt my love, and doen't — and doen't,"he repeated, with
a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, " there's
shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us."

I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of de-
livering himself, new evidence of his having thought of this
one topic, in every feature it presented.

"According to our reckoning," he proceeded, "Mas'r Da-
vy's here, and mine, she is like, one day, to make her own
poor solitary course to London. We believe — Mas'r Davy,
me, and all of us — that you are as innocent of everything
that has befel her, as the unborn child. You've spoke of
her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. -Bless her, I
knew she was! I knew she always was, to all. Y'ou're
thankful to her, and you love her. Help us, all you can tc
find her, and may Heaven reward you ! "

She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if
she were doubtful of what he had said.

" Will you trust me? " she asked, in a low voice of aston
ishment.

"Full and free! " said Mr. Peggotty.

" To speak to her, if I should ever find her ; shelter her,
if I have any shelter to divide with her ; and then, without
her knowledge, come to you, and bring you to her? " she
asked hurriedly.

We both replied together, " Yes ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 687

She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she
would devote herself to this task, fervently and faithfully.
That she would never waver in it, never be diverted from
it, never relinquish it, while there was any chance of hope.
If she were not true to it, might the object she now had in
life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its
passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more
despairing, if that were possible, than she had been upon
the river's brink that night; and then might all help, hu-
man and Divine, renounce her evermore!

She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address
us, but said this to the night sky ; then stood profoundly
quiet, looking at the gloomy water.

We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew ;
which I recounted at length. She listened with great at-
tention, and with a face that often changed, but had the
same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her eyes oc-
casionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It
seemed as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not
be too quiet.

She asked, when all was told, where we were to be com-
municated with, if occasion should arise. Under a dull
lamp in the road, I wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my
pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to her, and which
she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived
herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It
were better not to know.

Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had
already occurred to myself, I took out my purse; but I
could not prevail upon her to accept any money, nor could
I exact any promise from her that she would do so at an-
other time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could
not be called, for one in his condition, poor ; and that the
idea of her engaging in this search, while depending on her
own resources, shocked us both. She continued steadfast.
In this particular, his influence upon her was equally
powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him, but
remained inexorable.

"There may be work to be got,'' she said. "I'll try."

"At least take some assistance," I returned, "until you
have tried."

•I could not do what I have promised, for money," she
replied. " I could not take it, if I was starving. To give

688 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

me money would be to take away your trust, to take away
the object that you have given me, to take away the only
certain thing that saves me from the river."

" In the name of the great Judge," said I, " before whom
you and all of us must stand at His dread time, dismiss that
terrible idea! We can all do some good, if we will."

She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler,
as she answered:

"It has been put in your hearts, perhaps, to save a
wretched creature for repentance. I am afraid to think so ;
it seems too bold. If any good should come of me, I might
begin to hope ; for nothing but harm has ever come of my
deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long
while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have
given me to try for. I know no more, and I can say no
more. "

Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow ; and,
putting out her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty,
as if there were some healing virtue in him, went away
along the desolate road. She had been ill, probably for a
long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity of
observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her
sunken eyes expressed privation and endurance.

We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in
the same direction, until we came back into the lighted and
populous streets. I had such implicit confidence in her
declaration, that I then put it to Mr. Peggotty, whether it
would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting her, to follow
her any further. He being of the same mind, and equally
reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and
took ours, which was towards Highgate. He accompanied
me a good part of the way ; and when we parted, with a
prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a new
and thoughtfi1! compassion in him that I was at no loss to
interpret.

It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached
my own gate, and was standing listening for the deep bell
of Saint Paul's, the sound of which I thought had been
borne towards me among the multitude of striking clocks,
when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my
aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry
was shining out across the road.

Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of

OF DAMD COPPERFIELD. 689

her old alarms, and might be watching the progress of some
imaginary conflagration hi the distance, I went to speak to
her. It was Avith very great surprise that I saw a man
standing in her little garden.

He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act
of drinking. I stopped short, among the thick foliage out-
side, for the moon was up now, though obscured; ami I
recognised the man whom I had once supposed to be a
delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once encountered with my
aunt in the streets of the City.

He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with
a hungry appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cot-
tage, too, as if it were the first time he had seen it. After
stooping to put the bottle on the ground, he looked up at
the windows, and looked about ; though with a covert and
impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone.

The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and
my aunt came out. She was agitated, and told some money
into his hand. I heard it chink.

" What's the use of this? " he demanded.

"I can spare no more," returned my aunt.

"Then I can't go," said he. "Here! You may take it
back!"

" You bad man," returned my aunt, with great emotion;
"how can you use me so? But why do I ask? It is because
you know how weak I am ! What have I to do, to free
myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to your
deserts?"

"And why don't you abandon me to my deserts? " said
he.

" You ask me why! " returned my aunt. "What a heart
you must have ! "

He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his
head, until at length he said :

" Is this all you mean to give me, then? "

"It is all I can give you," said my aunt. "You know I
have had losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have
told you so. Having got it, why do you give me the pain
of looking at you for another moment, and seeing what you
have become? "

"I have become shabby enough, if you mean that," he
said. " I lead the life of an owl."

"You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,"
44

690 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

said my aunt. " You closed my heart against the whole
world, years and years. You treated me falsely, ungrate-
fully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it. Don't add new
injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done me ! "

"Ay!" he returned. "It's all very fine!— Well! I
must do the best I can, for the present, I suppose."

In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's
indignant tears, and came slouching out of the garden.
Taking two or three quick steps, as if I had just come up,
I met him at the gate, and went in as he came out. We
eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour.

"Aunt/' said I, hurriedly. "This man alarming you
again! Let me speak to him. Who is he? "

"Child," returned my aunt, taking my arm, "come in,
and don't speak to me for ten minutes."

We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired
behind the round green fan of former days, which was
screwed on the back of a chair, and occasionally wiped her
eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she came out,
and took a seat beside me.

"Trot," said my aunt, calmly, "it's my husband."

" Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead! *

"Dead to me," returned my aunt, "but living."

I sat in silent amazement.

" Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the ten-
der passion," said my aunt, composedly, " but the time was,
Trot, when she believed in that man most entirely. When
she loved him, Trot, right well. WThen there was no proof
of attachment and affection that she would not have given
him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly
breaking her heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment,
once and for ever, in a grave, and filled it up, and flattened
it down."

" My dear, good aunt ! "

"I left him," my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as
usual on the back of mine, " generously. I may say at this
distance of time, Trot, that I left him generously. He had
been so cruel to me, that 1 might have effected a separation
on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made
ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower,
married another woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a
gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. But he
was a fine-looking man when I married him," said my aunt,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 6$1

with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone ;
'- and I believed him — I was a fool! — to be the soul of hon-
our ! "

She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head.

" He is nothing to me now, Trot, — less than nothing.
But, sooner than have him punished for his offences (as he
would be if he prowled about in this country), I give him
more money than I can afford, at intervals when he reap-
pears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and
I am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the
sake of what I once believed him to be, I wouldn't have
even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with. For
I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was."

My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and
smoothed her dress.

" There, my dear ! " she said. " Xow, you know the
beginning, middle, and end, and all about it. We won't
mention the subject to one another any more ; neither, of
course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is my
grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, Trot ! "

CHAPTER XLVIII.

DOMESTIC.

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to
interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper
duties ; and it came out and was very successful. I was
not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, not-
withstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought bet-
ter of my own performance, I have little doubt, than any-
body else did. It has always been in my observation of
human nature, that a man who has any good reason to
believe in himself never nourishes himself before the
faces of other people in order that they may believe in
him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-
respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to
leserve.

It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other
3jseniials it is my written memory, to pursue the history of

692 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

my own fictions. They express themselves, and I leave
them to themselves. When I refer to them, incidentally,
it is only as a part of my progress.

Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that
nature and accident had made me an author, I pursued my
vocation with confidence. Without such assurance I should
certainly have left it alone, and bestowed my energy on
some other endeavour. I should have tried to find cut
what nature and accident really had made me, and tc be
that, and nothing else.

I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere^ sc
prosperously, that when my new success was achieved;, I
considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the
dreary debates. One joyful night, therefore, I noted down
the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time,
and I have never heard it since ; though I still recognise
the old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial
variation (except, perhaps, that there is more of it) all the
livelong session.

I now write of the time when I had been married, I sup-
pose, about a year and a half. After several varieties of
experiment, we had given up the housekeeping as a bad job.
The house kept itself, and we kept a^page. The principal
function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook ; in
which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his
cat, or the remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor.

He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan -lids.
His whole existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for
help on the most improper occasions, — as, when we had a
little dinner-par^y, or a few friends in the evening, — and
would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles
flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was
very much attached to us, and wouldn't go. He was a tear-
ful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, when
a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were
obliged to keep him. He had no mother — no anything in
the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a sister,
who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her
hands ; and he became quartered on us like a horrible young
changeling. He had a lively perception of his own unfor-
tunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve
of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme
corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 633

take completely out of his pocket, but always economised
aud secreted.

This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour, at six pounds
ten per annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. I
watched him as he grew — and he grew like scarlet beans —
with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin
to shave ; even of the days when he would be bald or grey.
I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him ; and, project-
ing myself into the future, used to think what an inconve-
nience he would be when he was an old man.

I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's
manner of getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's
watch, which, like everything else belonging to us, had no
particular place of its own ; and, converting it into money,
spent the produce (he was always a weak-minded boy) ki
incessantly riding up and down between London and Ux-
bridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as
well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth jour-
ney ; when f our-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which
he couldn't play, were found upon his person.

The surprise and its consequences would have been much
less disagreeable to me if he .had not been penitent. But he
was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way — not in
the lump, but by instalments. For example ; the day after
that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made
certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which
we believed to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it
except bottles and corks. We supposed he had now eased
his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook ; but, a
day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new
twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who,
early every morning, took away our bread ; and also how he
himself had been suborned to maintain the milkman in
coals. In two or three days more, I was informed by the
authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of
beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A
little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new
direction, and confessed to a knowledge of burglarious inten-
tions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who
was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being
such a victim, tha-t I would have given him any money to
hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his
being permitted to run away. It was an aggravating cir-

094 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

cum stance in the case that he had no idea of this, but con-
ceived that he was making me amends in every new discov-
ery : not to say, heaping obligations on my head.

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary
of the police approaching with some new intelligence ; and
lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be
transported. Even then he couldn't be quiet, but was
always writing us letters ; and wanted so much to see Dora
before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and
fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. In
short, I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated^
and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd of, " up the
country " somewhere ; I have no geographical idea where.

All this led me into some serious reflections, and pre-
sented our mistakes in a new aspect ; as I could not help
communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of my tender-
ness for her.

"My love," said I, "it is very painful to me to think that
our want of system and management, involves not only our-
selves (which we have got used to), but other people."

" You have been silent for a long time, and now you are
going to be cross ! " said Dora.

" No, my dear, indeed ! Let me explain to you what I
mean."

" I think I don't want to know," said Dora.

" But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down."

Dora put his nose to mine, and said "Boh! " to drive my
seriousness away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into
his pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded,
and a most resigned little expression of countenance.

"The fact is, my dear," I began, "there is contagion in
us. We infect everyone about us."

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's
face had not admonished me that she was wondering with
all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind
of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwhole-
some state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made
my meaning plainer.

" It is not merely, my pet," said I, "that we lose money
and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning
to be more careful; but that we incur the serious responsi-
bility of spoiling everyone who comes into our service or
has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the

OF DAVIL COPPERFIELD. ' ••'

fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people a1!
turn out ill because we don't turn out very well ourselves/"''

"Oh, what an accusation," exclaimed Dora, opening her
eyes wide ; " to say that you ever saw me take gold watcher '
Oh! '•

"My dearest,'' i remonstrated, "don't talk preposterous
nonsense! Who has made the least allusion to gold
watches? "

" You did," returned Dora. ''You know you did. You
said I hadn't turned out well, and compared me to him."

•To whom?" I asked.

' To the page," sobbed Dora. "Oh, you cruel fellow,
tc compare your affectionate wife to a transported page !
Why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were
married? Why didn't you say, you hard-hearted thing,
that you were convinced I was worse than a transported
page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh,
my goodness ! "

"Now, Dora, my love," I returned, gently trying to re-
move the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, "this is
not only very ridiculous of you, but very wrong. In the
first place, it's not true."

;- You always said he was a story-teller," sobbed Dora.
" And now you say the same of me ! Oh, what shall I do!
What shall I do!"

"My darling girl," I retorted, "I really must entreat
you to be reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do
say. My dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to
those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their
duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people
to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we
were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice —
which we are not — even if we liked it, and found it agree-
able to be so — which we don't— I am persuaded we should
have no right to go on in this way. We are positively cor-
rupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't
help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to
dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There>
dear, that's all. Come now! Don't be foolish! "

Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the
handkerchief. She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it,
that, if I was uneasy, why had I ever been married? Why
hadn't I said, even the day before we went to church, that

696 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If 1
couldn't bear her, why didn't I send her away to her aunts
at Putney, or to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be
glad to see her, and would not call her a transported page ;
Julia never had called her anything of the sort. In short,
Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that
condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind
of effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some
other course.

What other course was left to take! To "form her
mind? " This was a common phrase of words which had
a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to form Dora's
mind.

I began immediately. When Dora was very childish,
and I would have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried
to be grave — and disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked
to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts; and I
read Shakespeare to her — and fatigued her to the last de-
gree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite
Gasually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opin-
ion— and she started from them when I let them off, as if
the}7 had been crackers. No matter how incidentally or
naturally I endeavoured to form my little wife's mind, I
could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive
perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the
keenest apprehension. In particular, it was clear to me,
that she thought Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The for-
mation went on very slowly.

I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowl-
edge ; and whenever he came to see us, exploded my mines
upon him for the edification of Dora at second hand. The
amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon Traddles in
this manner was immense, and of the best quality ; but it
had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits,
and make her always nervous with the dread that it would
be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a
schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall ; of always playing spider t<?
Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her in-
finite disturbance.

Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, tc
the time when there should be a perfect sympathy between
Dora and me, and when I should have " formed her mind "
to my entire satisfaction, I persevered, even for months.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 697

Finding at last, however, that, although I had been ail this
time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with
determination, 1 had effected nothing, it began to occur to
me that perhaps Dora's mind was already formed.

On farther consideration this appeared so likely, that I
abandoned my scheme, which had had a more promising
appearance in words than in action ; resolving henceforth
to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to try to change her
into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired of
being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my
darling under restraint ; so, I bought a pretty pair of ear-
rings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day
to make myself agreeable.

Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed
me joyfully; but, there was a shadow between us, however
slight, and I had made up my mind that it should not be
there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I would
keep it for the future in my own breast.

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings
in her ears ; and then I told her that I feared we had not
been quite as good company lately, as we used to be, and
that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely felt, and which
indeed it was.

" The truth is, Dora, my life," I said; "I have been try-
ing to be wise."

"And to make me wise too," said Dora, timidly.
" Haven't you, Doady? "

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eye-
brows, and kissed the parted lips.

"It's of not a bit of use," said Dora, shaking her head,
until the ear-rings rang again. " You know what a little
thing I am, and what I wanted you to call me from the
first. If you can't do so, I am afraid you'lPnever like
me. Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would
have been better to have "

"Done what, my dear?" For she made no effort to
proceed.

"Nothing!" said Dora.

" Nothing? " I repeated.

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and
called herself by her favourite name of a goose, and hid
her face on my shoulder in such a profusion of curls that
it was quite a task to clear them away and see it.

698 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Don't I think it would have been better to have done
nothing, than to have tried to form my little wife's mind? "
said I, laughing at myself. " Is that the question? Yes,
indeed, I do."

" Is that what you have been trying? " cried Dora. " Oh,
what a shocking boy ! "

" But I shall never try any more," said I. "For I love
her dearly as she is."

" AYithout a story — really? " inquired Dora, creeping
closer to me.

" Why should I seek to change," said I, "what has been
so precious to me for so long ! You never can show better
than as your own natural self, my sweet Dora; and we'll
try no conceited experiments, but go back to our old way,
and be happy."

" And be happy ! " returned Dora. " Yes ! All day !
And you won't mind things going a tiny morsel wrong,
sometimes? "

"No, no," said I. "We must do the best we can."

" And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other
people bad," coaxed Dora; "will you? Because you know
it's so dreadfully cross."

"No, no," said I.

"It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable,
isn't it? " said Dora.

" Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the
world."

" In the world! Ah, Doady, ;t's a large place! "

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up
to mine, kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang
away to put on Jip's new collar.

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora,
I had been unhappy in trying it ; I could not endure my
own solitary wisdom ; I could not reconcile it with her for-
ms:- appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved to do what
I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself;
but, I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I
must degenerate into the spider again, and be for ever lying
in wait.

And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be
between us any more, but was to rest wholly on my own
heart? How did that fall?

The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deep

6F DAVID COPPERFIELD. 699

ened, if it were changed at all ; but it was as undefined as
ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music
faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I
was happy ; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated,
once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was al-
ways something wanting.

In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself,
to reflect my mind on this paper, I again examine it,
closely, and bring its secrets to the light. What I missedj
I still regarded — I always regarded — as something that had
been a dream of my youthful fancy ; that was incapable of
realisation ; that I was now discovering to be so, with some
natural pain, as all men did. But, that it would have been
better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and
shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner ; and
that this might have been; I knew.

Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one,
that what I felt was general and unavoidable ; the other,
that it was particular to me, and might have been differ-
ent : I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their
opposition to each other. "When I thought of the airy
dreams of youth that are incapable of realisation, I thought
of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown ;
and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old
house, arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that
might have some renewal in another world, but never,
never more could be reanimated here.

Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What
might have happened, or what would have happened, if
Dora and I had never known each other? But, she was so
incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of
all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight
like gossamer floating in the air.

I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered,
and half awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses
of my mind. There was no evidence of it in me ; I know
of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I bore the
weight of all our little cares, and all my projects ; Dora
held the pens; and we both felt that our shares were
adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of me,
and proud of me ; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest
words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with
which my old friends heard of my growing reputation and

700 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

r^ad my book as if they heard me speaking its contents,
Dora read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright
eyes, and said I was a dear old clever, famous boy.

" The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart. "
Those words of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to
me, at this time ; were almost always present to my mind.
I awoke with them, often, in the night; I remember to
have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls
of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undis-
ciplined when i4t first loved Dora ; and that if it had been
disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were married,
what it had felt in its secret experience.

" There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability
of mind and purpose." Those words I remembered too. I
had endeavoured to adapt Dora to myself, and found it
impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to
Dora ; to share with her what I could, and be happy ; to
bear on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still.
This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart,
when I began to think. It made my second year much
happier than my first; and, what was better still, made
Dora's life all sunshine.

But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had
lioped that lighter hands than mine would help to mould
her character, and that a baby-smile upon her breast might
change my child- wife to a woman. It was not to be. The
spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little
prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing.

"When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,"
said Dora, " I shall make Jip race. He is getting quite
slow and lazy. "

" I suspect, my dear/' said my aunt, quietly working by
her side, " he has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora. "

" Do you think he is old? " said Dora, astonished. " Oh,
how strange it seems that Jip should be old ! "

"It's a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we
get on in life," said my aunt, cheerfully; "I don't feel
more free from it than I used to be, I assure you."

"But Jip," said Dora, looking at him with compassion,
"even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow ! '"

"I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom," said
my aunt, patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of
her couch to look at Jip, who responded by standing on his

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 701

hind-legs, and baulking himself in various asthmatic at-
tempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. " He
must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and
I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with
the flowers in the spring. Bless the little dog! " exclaimed
my aunt, " if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the
point of losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last breath,
I believe ! "

Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really
was defying my aunt to such a furious extent, that he
couldn't keep straight, but barked himself sideways. The
more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her;
for, she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrut-
able reason he considered the glasses personal-
Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of
persuasion ; and when he was quiet, drew one of his long
ears through and through her hand, repeating thoughtfully,
" Even little Jip ! Oh, poor fellow ! "

"His lungs are good enough," said my aunt, gaily, "and
his dislikes are not at all feeble. He has a good many
years before him, no doubt. But if you want a dog to
race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for that,
and I'll give yoa one."

"Thank you, aunt," said Dora, faintly. "But don't,
please ! "

"No? " said my aunt, taking off her spectacles.

"I couldn't have any other dog but Jip," said Dora.
" It would be so unkind to Jip ! Besides, I couldn't be
such friends with any other dog but Jip; because he
wouldn't have known me before I was married, and
wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to our
house. I couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am
afraid, aunt."

" To be sure ! " said my aunt, patting her cheek agai .
" You are right. "

" You are not offended," said Dora. "Are you? "

"Why, what a sensitive pet it is! " cried my aunt jenH
ing over her affectionately "To think that I could W.
offended'"

"No, no, I didn't really think so," returned Dora; " bin
I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment — "
am always a silly little thing, you know; but it made m<?
more silly — to talk about Jip. He has known me in all cY a

702 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

has happened to me, haven't you, Jip? And I could i't beai
to slight him, because he was a little altered — could I, Jip? "

Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her
hand.

" You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your
mistress yet? " said Dora. " We may keep one another
company a little longer ! "

My pretty Dora ! When she came down to dinner on the
ensuing Sunday, and was so glad to see old Traddles (who
always dined with us on Sunday), we thought she would
be "running about as she used to do," in a few days. But
they said, wait a few days more ; and then, wait a few days
more ; and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked
very pretty ; and was very merry ; but the little feet that
used to be so nimble when they danced round Jip, were
dull and motionless.

I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and
upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck
and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager, Jip
would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and
look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we
were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of
nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and
pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post
of candle-bearer to any one alive. Traddles would be often
at the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge
of sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the
world. We made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-
wife was the gayest there.

But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she
was lighter in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon
me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet
unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the recognition
of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with
myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me,
and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of " Good
night, Little Blossom/'' I sat down at my desk alone, and
cried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the
blossom, withered rn its bloom upon the tree I

O* DAVID COPPERFIELD. 703

JHAPTER XL1X

1 AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY

I received one morning by the post, the following letter,
dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctors'* Com-
mons ; which I read with some surprise *—

* My dear Sir,

" Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for
a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that
intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to
me in the midst of my professional duties, of contem-
plating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the
prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever
must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common
description. This fact, my dear Sir, combined with the
distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised
you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of
addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar
appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that
the name to which I do myself the honour to refer will
ever be treasured among the muniments of our house (I
allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers,
preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal
esteem amounting to affection.

" It is not for one situated, through his original errors
and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is
the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so
maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to
address you — it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced
to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation
That, he leaves to abler and to purer hands.

" If your more important avocations should admit of your
ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far — which may
be, or may not be, as circumstances arise — you will naturally
inquire by what object am" I influenced, then, in inditing the
present missive? Allow me to say that I fully defer to the
reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develop
it ; premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature

?04 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Without more directly referring to any latent ability
that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thun-
derbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in
any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing,
that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled — that my
peace is shattered aDd my power of enjoyment destroyed —
that my heart is no longer in the right place — and that I
no more walk erect before my fellow-man. The canker is
in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm
is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The
sooner the better. But I will not digress.

"Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfullness,
beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's in flu-
ence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman,
wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for
a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty
hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoy-
ment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and
peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the
King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D.Y.)
on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarcera-
tion on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in
the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary commu-
nication is accomplished.

" I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend
Mr. Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles
of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and
forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as
may be) our past relations of the olden time. I confine myself
to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and place
T have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet
" Remain,

"Of
"A

"Fallen Tower,

" WlLKIXS MlCAWBER.

'* P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the
statement that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential posses-
sion of my intentions. "

I read the letter over, several times. Making due allow-
ance for Mr. Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for
the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrott

OF DAVID COFPEEFIELD. "05

long letters on all possible and impossible occasions, I still
I- lieved that something important lay hidden at the bottom
of this roundabout communication. I put it down, to think
about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and
was still pursuing it, when Traddles found me in the height
of my perplexity.

' My dear fellow, said I, " I never was better pleased to
see you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober
judgment at a most opportune time. I have received a
very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr. Micawber."

"No?" cried Traddles. "You don't say so? And I
have received one from Mrs. Micawber ! " e

^Yith that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, anct
whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and ex-
citement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, pro-
duced his letter and made an exchange with me. I watched
him into the heart of Mr. Micawber s letter, and returned
the elevation of eyebrows with which he said " ' Wielding
the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging
flame ! ' Bless me, Copperfield ! " — and then entered on
the perusal of Mrs. Micawber' s epistle

It ran thus : —

" My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles. and if ne

should still remember one who formerly had the happiness
of being well acquainted with him, may I beg a few
moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I
would not intrude upon his kindness, were T in any other
position than on the confines of distraction.

" Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation
of Mr. Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife
and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy
appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best indulgence.
Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr.
^rioawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It
2S gradually augmented, until it assumes the appearance
of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I assure
Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take
place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings,
when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear
Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the D.
Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal charac-
teristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The

706 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything
he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish
for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited
for two-pence, to buy ' lemon-stunners ' — a local sweetmeat
— he presented an oyster-knife at the twins !

"I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into
these details. "Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it
difficult to form the faintest conception of my heartrending
situation.

"May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of
my letter? Will he now allow me to throw myself on his
friendly consideration? Oh yes, for I know his heart!

" The quick eye of affection is uot easily blinded, when
of the female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London.
Though he studiously concealed his "..and, this morning
before breakfast, in writing the direction -card which he
attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the
eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected d, o, n, dis-
tinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is
the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T, to see
my misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I
ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber
and his agonised family? Oh no, for that would be too
much !

" If Mr. Oopperfield should yet remember one unknown
to fame, will Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards
and similar entreaties? In any case, he will have the
benevolence to consider this communication strictly private,
and 011 no account whatever to be alluded to, however dis-
tantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should
ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be most improb-
able), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury,
will be fraught with less painful consequences than any
addressed immediately to one who subscribes herself, in
extreme distress,

"Mr. Thomas Traddles' s respectful friend and suppliant,

"Emma Micawber."

"What do you think of that letter?" said Traddles,
casting his eyes upon me, when I had read it twice.

" W^hat do you think of the other? " said I. For he was
still reading it with knitted brows.

"I think that the two together, Copperfield," replied

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 70?

Traddles, " mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usu-
ally mean in their correspondence — but I don't know what.
They are both written in good faith, I have no doubt, and
without any collusion. Poor thing"! " he was now alluding
to Mrs. Micawber' s lettea, and we were standing side by
side comparing the two ; " it will be a charity to write to
her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see
Mr. Micawber."

I acceded to this, the more readily, because I now re
proached myself with having treated her former letter
rather lightly. It had set me thinking a good deal at the
time, as I have mentioned in its place ; but my absorption
in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my
hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismiss-
ing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers,
but chiefly to wonder what " pecuniary liabilities " they
were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy
Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah
Heep.

However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micaw-
ber, in our joint names, and we both signed it. As we
walked into town to post it, Traddles and I held a long
conference, and launched into a number of speculations,
which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our coun-
sels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was,
that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber' s
appointment.

Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter
of an hour before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already
there. He was standing with his arms folded, over against
the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a senti-
mental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs
of trees that had shaded him in his youth.

AVhen we accosted him, his manner was something more
confused, and something less genteel, than of yore. He
had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of
this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not
quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and
more of it as we conversed with him ; but, his very eye-
glass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt-collar,
though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather
drooped

" Gentlemen J " said Mr. Micawber. after the first salu*

708 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

tatious, "you are friends in need, and friends indeed.
Allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physi-
cal welfare of Mrs, Copperfield in esse, and Mrs. Traddles
in posse, — presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr.
Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections,
for weal and for woe."

We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable
replies. He then directed our attention to the wall, and
was beginning, " I assure you, gentlemen," when I ven-
tured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and
to beg that he would speak to us in the old way.

"My dear Copperfield," he returned, pressing my hand,
"your cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shafr
tered fragment of the Temple once called Man — if I may
be permitted so to express myself — bespeaks a heart that
is an honour to our common nature. I was about to
observe that 1 again behold the serene spot where some of
the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by."

"Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber," said I. "I
hope she is well? "

"Thank you," returned Mr. Micawber, whose face
clouded at this reference, " she is but so-so. And this,"
said Mr. Micawber, nodding his head sorrowfully, " is the
Bench ! Where, for the first time in many revolving years,
the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not
proclaimed, from day to day, by importunate voices declin-
ing to vacate the passage ; where there was no knocker on
the door for any creditor to appeal to ; where personal ser
vice of process was not required, and detainers were merely
lodged at the gate ! Gentlemen, " said Mr. Micawber, " when
the shadow of that ironwork on the summit of the brick
structure has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I
4,ave seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate
pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar
vith every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you
*ill know how to excuse me,"

" We rave all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber/
said I.

"Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly,
4; when I was an inmate of that retreat I could look my
fellow-man in the face, and punch his head if he offended
me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on those
glorious terms ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 709

Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr.
Micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the
proffered arm of Trad dies on the other, and walked away
between us.

"There are some landmarks," observed Mr. Micawber,
looking fondly back over his shoulder, " on the road to the
tomb, which, but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man
would wish never to have passed. Such is the Bench in
my chequered career- "

"Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,' said Tr»4
dies.

"I am, Sir," interposed Mr. Micawber.

"I hope," said Traddles, "it is not because you have
conceived a dislike to the law — for I am a lawyer myself,
you know."

Mr. Micawber answered not a word.

"How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber? " said I, aftei
a silence.

•' My dear Copperfleld," returned Mr. Micawber, bursting
into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, " if you
ask after my employer as your friend, I am sorry for it ; if
you ask after him as my friend, I sardonically smile at it
In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg,
without offence to you, to limit my reply to this — that
whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is
foxy : not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a pri-
vate individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has
lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my profes-
sional capacity."

I expressed my regret for having innocently touched
upon a theme that roused him so much. "May I ask,"
said I, " without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how
my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are? "

"Miss Wickfield," said Mr. Micawber, now turning red,
" is, as she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My
dear Copperfleld, she is the only starry spot in a miserable
existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration
of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth,
and goodness! — Take me," said Mr. Micawber, "down a
turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I
am not equal to this ! "

TVe wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took
out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a

710 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wall. If 1 looked as gravely at hiia as Traddles did, he
must have found our company by no means inspiriting.

"It is my fate," said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sob-
bing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expres-
sion of doing something genteel; "it is my fate, gentle-
men, that the finer feelings of our nature have become
reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a
flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me,
if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm
will settle my business in double-quick time."

Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until
lie put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-
collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who
might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his
hat very much on one side. I then mentioned — not know=
ing what might be lost, if we lost sight of him yet— that it
would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt,
if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his
service.

" You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr.
Micawber," said I, " and forget whatever you have on your
mind, in pleasanter reminiscences."

" Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely
to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,"
said Traddles, prudently.

"Gentlemen," returned Mr. Micawber, "do with me as
you will ! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and
am tossed in all directions by the elephants — I beg your
pardon ; I should have said the elements. "

We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in
the act of starting; and arrived at Highgate without en-
countering any difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy
and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the
best — so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for
the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally
made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of
a tune ; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only
made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceed-
ingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes

We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because
of Dora's not being well. My aunt presented herself on
being sent for, and welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious
cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the

OJ DAVID €OPPERFIELD 711

window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchiei had a
mental wrestle with himself.

Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceed-
ingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease,
and was so quick to find any such person out, that he shook
hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in
five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth,
on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that
he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake,
" My dear sir, you overpower me ! " Which gratified Mr.
Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigoui
than before.

" The friendliness of this gentleman," said Mr. Micawber
to my aunt, "if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure
of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national siyo.ts
— floors me. To a man who is struggling with a cor j.pli-
cated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is
trying, I assure you."

"My friend Mr. Dick," replied my aunt, proudly, "is
not a common man."

"That I am convinced of," said Mr Micawber. "My
dear Sir ! " for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him
again ; "I am deeply sensible of your cordiality ! "

" How do you find yourself? " said Mr Dick, with an
anxious look.

''Indifferent, my dear Sir," returned Mr Micawber,
sighing.

" You must keep up your spirits, n said Mr Dick, "and
make yourself as comfortable as possible "

Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly
words, and by finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his
own. "It has been my lot," he observed, "to meet in the
diversified panorama of human existence, with an occa-
sional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as
the present! "

At another time I should have been amused by this ; but
I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I
watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations
between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a
counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a per-
fect fever. Traddies, sitting on the edge of his chair, with
his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect
than ever, stared by turns au the ground and at Mr. Mi caw*

:i2 PERSONAL HISTORY AJSrD EXPERIENCE

ber, without so much as attempting to put in a word, My
aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was con-
centrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of
her wits than either of us ; for she held him in conversa-
tion, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he
liked it or not

" You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr Micaw*
ber," said my aunt. "I wish T had had the pleasure of
seeing you before."

"Madam," returned Mr Micawber, " I wish I had had
the honour of knowing you at an earlier period I was not
always the wreck you at present behold "

"I hope Mrs. Micawber and your famiiy are well, Sir,,:
said my aunt.

Mr. Micawber inclined his head. " They are as well,
ma'am," he desperately observed, after a pause, "as Aliens
and Outcasts can ever hope to be."

" Lord bless you, Sir ! " exclaimed my aunt in hei
abrupt way " What are you talking about? "

"The subsistence of my family, ma'am," returned Mr
Micawber, " trembles in the balance. My employer *

Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to
peel the lemons that had been under my directions sef
before him, together with all the other appliances he used
in making punch.

"Your employer, you know," said Mr. Dick, jogging hi?
arm as a gentle reminder

"My good Sir," returned Mr Micawber, "you recall me
I am obliged to you." They shook hands again. "My
employer, ma'am — Mr. Heep — once did me the favour to
observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the sti-
pendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with
him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country
swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring ele-
ment. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary)
it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek
a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber
abets their unnatural feats, by playing the barrel-organ."

Mr Micawber, with a random but expressive nourish of
his knife, signified that these performances might be
expected to take place after he was no more ; then resumed
hie ueeling with a desperate air.

My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that;

OF DAVID COPPEKFIELD 713

she usually kept beside her, :-md eyed him attentively.
Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the
idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not pre-
pared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at
this point, but for the strange proceedings in which T saw
him engaged , whereof his puttLig the lemon-peel into the
kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the
?mpty jug, and confidently attempting to pcur boiling
water out of a candlestick, were among the most remark-
able I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He
clattered all his means and implements together, rose from
his chair, pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and burst
into tears

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, behind his
handkerchief, "this is an occupation, of all others, requir-
ing an untroubled mind, and self-respect I cannot per-
form it It is out of the question. "

"Mr Micawber," said I, "what is the matter? Pray
speak out You are among friends."

" Among friends, Sir?" repeated Mr. Micawber; and
all he had reserved came breaking out of him " Good
Heavens, it is principally because I am among friends that
my state of mind is what it is What is the matter, gen-
tlemen? What is not the matter? Villiany is the matter ;
baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are
the matter , and the tiame of the whole atrocious mass is —
Heep!"

My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if
we were possessed.

u The struggle is over t " said Mr. Micawber, violently
gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly strik-
ing out from time to time with both arms, as if he were
swimming under superhuman difficulties "I will lead
this life no longer T am a wretched being, cut off from
everything that makes life tolerable I have been under a
Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me back
my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for
the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present
on mv feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword to-mor-
row, and I'll do it With an appetite! "

1 never saw a man so hot in my life I tried to calm
him, that we might come to something rational; but he got
hotter and hotter and wouldn't hear a word

714 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"I'll put my hand in no man's hand," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that ha
was like a man righting with cold water, " until I have —
blown to fragments — the — a — detestable — serpent — Heep!
I'll partake of no one's hospitality, until I have — a —
moved Mount Vesuvius — to eruption — on — a — the aban-
doned rascal — Heep! Refreshment — a — underneath this
roof — particularly punch — would — a — choke me — unless —
I had — previously — choked the eyes — out of the head — a
— of — interminable cheat, and liar — Heep! I — a — I'll
know nobody — and — a — say nothing — and — a — live no-
where— until I have crushed — to— a — undiscoverable atoms
— the — transcendent and inmiortal hypocrite and perjurer
—Heep!"

I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the
spot. The manner in which he struggled through these
inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found himself get-
ting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed
at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehe-
mence little less than marvellous, was frightful ; but now,
when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us,
with every possible colour in his face that had no business
there, and an endless procession of lumps following one
another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to
shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being
in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance,
but he waved me off, and wouldn't hear a word.

"No, Copperfield! — No communication — a — until — Miss
Wickfield — a — redress from wrongs inflicted by consum-
mate scoundrel — Heep ! " (I am quite convinced he could
aot have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy
with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming. )
"Inviolable secret — a — from the whole world — a — no ex-
ceptions— this day week — a — at breakfast time — a — every-
body present — including aunt— a — and extremely friendly
gentleman — to be at the hotel at Canterbury — a — where—
Mrs. Micawber and myself — Auld Lang Syne in chorus —
and — a — will expose intolerable ruffian — Heep ! No more
to say — a — or listen to persuasion — go immediately— not
carjable — a — bear society — upon the track of devoted and
doomed traitor — Heep ! "

With this last repetition of the magic word that naa
kept him going at alL and. in which he surpassed all his

OF DA\ID COPPERFIELD. 715

previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed out of the house;
leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that
reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But
even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to
be resisted ; for while we were yet in the height of our
excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note
was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which
he had called to write it : —

* Most secret and. confidential.
" My dear Sir,

u I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apol-
ogies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An
explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was
the result of an internal contest more easily conceived
than described.

" I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appoint-
ment for the morning of this day week, at the house of
public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber
and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to
yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman
nurtured beyond the Tweed.

" The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which
can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow-mortal, I
shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be
deposited in that place of universal resort, where

" ' Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

J* 'The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,'

" — With the plain Inscription,

" Wilkins Micawber,"

CHAPTER L.

MR. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE

By this time, some months had passed, since our inter-
view on the bank of the river with Martha. I had never
seen her since, but she had communicated with Mr. Peg-
gotty on several occasions. Xothing had come of her zeal-
ous intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me,

716 PERSONAL HISi'ORl A3D EXPERIEJNOb.

that any clue had ever been obtained, for a moment, to
Emily's fate. I confess that I began to despair of her
recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the
belief that she was dead.

His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know
— and I believe his honest heart was transparent to me — he
uever wavered again, in his solemn certainty of rinding her.
His patience never tired. And, although I trembled foi
the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong
assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so relig-
ious in it, so affectingly expressive of its anchor being in
the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and
honour in which I held him were exalted every day.

His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no
more. He had been a man of sturdy action all his life,
and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help he
must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have
known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the
light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the
old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, ou
reading something in the newspaper that might apply to
her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of three
or four score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples,
and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle
had assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly per-
formed ; for he was always steadfast in a purpose of saving
money for Emily's sake, when she should be found. In
all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I nevei
heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart.

Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was
quite fond of him. I fancy his figure before me now,
standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand, and
ihe blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder,
to Liz face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight,
when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to
smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and
fro together ; and then, the picture of his deserted home,
and the comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes
of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind
moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind.

One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found
Martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding nignt

^ien he came out, and tha^ «srth~ l»© " -sked him not to leave

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 717

LondoD on any account, until lie should have seen her
again.

u Did she tell you why? " I inquired

"1 asked her, Mas *r Davy, " he replied, "but it ip hut
few words as she ever says, and she on'y got my promise
and so went away "

" Did she say when you might expect to see her again? r
I demanded.

"No, Mas'r Davy," he returned, drawing his hand
thoughtfully down his face "I asked that too: but it
was more (she said) than she could tell."

As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes
that hung on threads, I made no other comment on this
information than that I supposed he would see her soon.
Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to
myself, and those were faint enough.

I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a
fortnight afterwards. I remember that evening well. It
was the second in Mr. Micawber'a week of suspense There
had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the
air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with
wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still
dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As
I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began
to close around me, their little voices were hushed; and
that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in
the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for
the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed.

There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and
ivy at the side of our cottage, through which I could see,
from the garden where I was walking, into the road before
the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place,
as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure
beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly
towards me, and beckoning.

"Martha! " said I, going to it.

" Can you come with me? " she inquired, in an agitated
whisper. " I have been to him, and he is not at home. I
wrote down where he was to come, and left it or his table
with my own hand. They said he would not be out long
I have tidings for him. Can you come directly? "

My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately.
She made a hasty gesture wit1^ V- hand, as if to entreat

9 18 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

aiy patience and my silence, and turned towards London,
whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously
on foot

I asked her if that were not our destination? On hex
motioning Yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, I
stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got
into it. When I asked her where the coachman was to
drive, she answered " Anywhere near Golden Square ! And
quick!" — then shrank into a corner, with one trembling
hand before her face, and the other making the former
gesture, as if she could not bear a voice.

Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams
of hope and dread, I looked at her for some explanation
But, seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet, and
feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such
a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We pro-
ceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she
glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were
going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but other-
wise remained exactly as at first.

We alighted at one of the entrances to the square she
had mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not
knowing but that we might have some occasion for it. She
laid hor hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of thb
sombre streets, of which there are several in that part,
where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupa-
tion of single families, but have, and had, long degener-
ated into poor lodgings let off in rooms Entering at the
open door of one cf these, and releasing my arm, she beck
oned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was
like a tributary channel to the street

The house swarmed with inmates As we went up, doors
of rooms were opened and people's heads put out 5 and we
passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down
In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had
seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-
pots ; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for
these were principally the observers who looked out of their
doors, it was a broad panelled staircase, with massive
balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors,
ornamented with carved fruit and flowers ; and board seats
in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur
were miserably decayed and dirty: rot, damp, and age.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 719

had weakened the flooring, which in many places was
unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made,
I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame,
by repairing the costly old woodwork here and there with
common deal ; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old
noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-
assorted union shrank away from the other. Severaj of
the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or
wholly blocked up In those that remained, there was
scarcely any glass ; and, through the crumbling frame i by
which the bad air seemed always to come in,' and never tc
go out, I saw, through other glassless windows, into othei
houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into
a wretched yard which was the common dust-heap of the
mansion.

We proceeded to the top-story of the house. Two or
three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indis-
tinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us.
As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us
and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for
a moment, at a door Then it turned the handle, and went in.

"What's this!" said Martha, in a whisper. "She has
gone into my room I don't know her! "

7" knew her I had recognised her with amazement, for
Miss Dartle

I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I
had seen before, in a few words, to my conductress ; and
had scarcely done so when we heard her voice in the room,
though not, from where we stood, what she was saying.
Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former
action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a
little back door which seea^ed to have no lock, and which
she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret
with a low sloping roof: little better than a cupboard.
Between this, and the room she had called hers, there was
a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here
we stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her
hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of the room
beyond, that it was pretty large ; that there was a bed in
it; and that there were some common pictures of ships
upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person
whom we had heard her address Certainly, my companies
could not, for mv position was the best

*20 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha
kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listen-
ing attitude.

•*It matters little to me her not being at home," said
Rosa Dartle, haughtily, " I know nothing of her It is
you I come to see."

" Me? " replied a soft voice

At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame For
it was Emily's!

" Yes," returned Miss Dartle, "I have come to look at
you. What? Yrou are not ashamed of the face that has
done so much? "

The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold
stern sharpness and its mastered rage, presented her before
me, as if I had seen her standing in the light. I saw the
flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure ; and I
saw the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips
quivering and throbbing as she spoke

"I have come to see," she said, "James Steerforth's
fancy; the girl who ran away with him, and is the town-
talk of the commonest people of her native place ; the bold,
flaunting, practised companion of persons like James Steer-
forth. I want to know what such a thing is like."

There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she
heaped these taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker
swiftly interposed herself before it. It was succeeded by
a moment's pause.

When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set
teeth, and with a stamp upon the ground.

" Stay there ! " she said, " or I'll proclaim you to the
house, and the whole street! If you try to evade me, I'll
stop you, if it's by the hair, and raise the very stones
against you ! "

A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached
jiy ears. A silence succeeded. I did not know what to
do. Much as I desired to put an end to the interview, I
felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was for
Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her Would he
never come? I thought impatiently.

"So!" said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh,
"1 see her at last! Why, he was a poor creature to be
taken bv that delicate mock-modesty, and that hanging
lie a .•.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 72i

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, spare me! " exclaimed Emily.
" Whoever you are, you know my pitiable story, and for
Heaven's sake spare me, if you would be spared yourself! "

• If /would be spared!" returned the other fiercely;
" what is there in common between us, do you think? "

"Nothing but our sex," said Emily, with a burst of
tears.

"And that," said Rosa Dartle, "is so strong a clami^
preferred by one so infamous, that if I had any feeling in
my breast but scorn and abhorrence of you, it would freeze
it up. Our sex! You are an honour to our sex! "

" I have deserved this," cried Emily, "but it's dreaarul!
Dear, dear lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am
fallen! Oh, Martha, come back! Oh, home, home ! "

Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the
door, and looked downward, as if Emily were crouching
on the floor before her. Being now between me and the
light, I could see her curled lip, and her cruel eyes intently
fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph.

" Listen to what I say ! " she said ; " and reserve your
false arts for your dupes. Do you hope to move me by
your tears? No more than you could charm me by your
smiles, you purchased slave."

" Oh, have some mercy on me ! " cried Emily " Show
me some compassion, or I shall die mad ! "

"It would be no great penance," said Rosa Dartle, "for
your crimes. Do you know what you have done? Do you
ever think of the home you have laid waste? "

" Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don't think of
it ! " cried Emily ; and now I could just see her, on her
knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face looking
upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and hei
hair streaming about her. " Has there ever been a single
minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been before me,
just as it used to be in the lost days when I tnrned my
back upon it for ever and for ever? Oh, home, home ! Oh
dear, dear uncle, if you ever conld have known the agony
your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you
never would have shown it to me so constant, mnch as you
felt it ; bat would have been angry to me, at least once in
my life, that I might have had some comfort! I have
none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of thern were
always fond of me ! " She dropned on her face, before- the
4£ ■» -

722 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

imperious figure in the chair, with au imploring efiort to
clasp the skirt of her dress.

Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as
a figure of brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if
she knew that she must keep a strong constraint upon her-
self— I write what I sincerely believe— or she would be
tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I saw
her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and char-
acter seemed forced into that expression. — Would he nevei
come?

"The miserable vanity of these earthworms ! " sue said,
when she had so far controlled the angry heavmgs of her
breast, that she could trust herself to speak. u Your
home ! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought on it, or
suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which
money would not pay for, and handsomely? Your home!
You were a part of the trade of your home, and were
bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people
dealt in."

"Oh not that!" cried Emily "Say anything of me;
but don't visit my disgrace and shame, more than I have
done, on folks who are as honourable as you ! Have some
respect for them, as you are a lady, if yon have no mercy
for me."

" I speak," she said, not deigning to take any heed of
this appeal, and drawing away her dress from the contam-
ination of Emily's touch, "I speak of his home — where I
live. Here," she said, stretching out her hand with her
contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate
girl, "is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother
and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't
nave been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repin-
ing, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up from
the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then
tossed back to her original place ! "

" No ! no ! " cried Emily, cla.sping her hands together
a When he first came into my way — that the day had never
dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my
grave r — I had been brought up as virtuous as you or any
lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as
you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live
in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his
power with a weak, vain girl might be 1 don't defend

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 723

myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will
know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with
it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I
believed him, trusted him, and loved him! "

Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in
recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so
darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost
thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no
aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking
at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of
sxpressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and
scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never
could see such another.

■ You love him? You?" she cried, with her clenched
nand, quivering as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the
object of her wrath.

Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.
'•And tell that to me,n she added, ''with your shameful
lips? Why don't they whip these creatures? If I could
order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death. "
And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have
trusted her with the rack itself, while that furious look
lasted.

She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed
at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for
gods and men.

"She love!" she said. "That carrion! And he ever
cared for her, she'd tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that
these trader are ! "

Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of
the two, I would have much preferred to be the object of
the latter. But, when she suffered it to break loose, it was
only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and
however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself,
"I came here, you pure fountain of love," she said, ."to
see — as I began' by telling you— what such a thing as you
was like. I was" curious. - I am satisfied. Also to tell
you, that you had best seek that home of yours, with all
speed, and hide your head among those excellent people
who are expecting you, and whom your money will console.
TVTien it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love
again, you know ! I thought you a broken toy that had
lasted its dine; a worthless spangle that was tarnished,

724 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady,
and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and
trustfulness — which you look like, and is quite consistent
with your story ! — I have something more to say. Attend
to it; for what I say I'll do. Do you hear me, you fair
spirit? What I say, I mean to do ! "

Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment : but
it passed over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling.

"Hide yourself," she pursued, "if not at home, some
where. Let it be somewhere beyond reach; in some
obscure life — or, better still, in some obscure death. I
wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have found
no way of helping it to be still ! I have heard of such
means sometimes. I believe they may be easily found."

A low crying, on the part of Eniily, interrupted her
here. She stopped, and listened to it as if it were music.

"I am of a strange nature, perhaps," Rosa Dartle went
on; "but I can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I
find it sickly. Therefore, I will have it cleared ; I will
have it purified of you. If you live here to-morrow, I'll
have your story and your character proclaimed on the com-
mon stair. There are decent women in the house, I am
told ; and it is a pity such a light as you should be among
them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge
in this town in any character but your true one (which you
are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the
same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat.
Being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to
the favour of your hand, I am sanguine as to that."

Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear
this? How long could I bear it?

" Oh me, oh me ! " exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a
tone that might have touched the hardest heart, I should
have thought; but there was no relenting in Rosa Dartle's
smile. " What, what shall I do ! "

"Do?" returned the other. "Live happy in your own
reflections ! Consecrate your existence to the recollection
of James Steerforth's tenderness — he would have made you
his serving-man's wife, would he not?— or to feeling grate-
ful to the upright and deserving creature who would have
taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud remembrances,
and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the honour-
able position to which they have raised you in the eyes of

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 725

everything that wears the human shape, will not sustain
you, marry that good man, and be happy in his condescen-
sion. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways
and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair — rind
one, and take your flight to Heaven! "

I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was
certain. It was his, thank God!

She moved slowly from before the door when she said
this, and passed out of my sight.

" But mark ! " she added, slowly and sternly, opening
the other door to go away, " I am resolved, for reasons
that I have and hatreds that I entertain, to cast you out,
unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or drop
your pretty mask. This is what I had to say ; and what
I say, I mean to do ! "

The foot upon the stairs came nearer — nearer — passed
her as she went down — rushed into the room!

"Uncle!"

A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment,
and looking in, saw him supporting her insensible figure
in his arms. He gazed for a few seconds in the face ; then
stooped to kiss it — oh, how tenderly ! and drew a handker-
chief before it.

"Mas'r Davy," he said, in a low tremulous voice, when
it was covered, " I thank my Heav'nly Father, as my dream's
come true ! I thank Him hearty for having guided of me,
in His own ways, to my darling ! "

With those words he took her up in his arms ; and, with
the veiled face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards
his own, carried her, motionless and unconscious, down the
stairs.

CHAPTER LI

THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY.

It was yet early in the morning of the following day,
when, as I was walking in my garden with my aunt (who
took little other exercise now, being so much in attendance
on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr. Peggotty desired to
speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me half-

726 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

way, on my going towards the gate ; and bared his head, a&
it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for
whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all
that had happened overnight. Without saying a word, she
walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him, and
patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that
she had no need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood
her quite as well as if she had said a thousand.

"I'll go in now, Trot," said my aunt, "and look aftei
Little Blossom, who will be getting up presently."

" Xot along of my being heer, ma'am, I hope? " said Mr.
Peggotty. "Unless my wits is gone a band's neezing "
— by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say, bird's-nesting —
"this morning, 'tis along of me as you're a going to quit-
us?"

"You have something to say, my good friend," returned
my aunt, " and will do better without me."

"By your leave, ma'am," returned Mr. Peggotty, "L
should take it kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicket-
ten, if you'd bide heer."

"Would you?" said my aunt, with short good-nature.
" Then I am sure I will ! "

So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty' s, and
walked with him to a leafy little summer-house there was
at the bottom of the garden, where she sat down on a
bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr. Peg-
gotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on
the small rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap
for a little while before beginning to speak, I could not
help observing what power and force of character his sin-
ewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty compan-
ion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair.

"I took my dear child away last night," Mr. Peggotty
began, as he raised his eyes to ours, " to my lodging, wheer
I have a long time been expecting of her and preparing fur
her. It was hours afore she knowed me right ; and when
she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said to
me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You
may believe me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at
home so playful — and see her humbled, as it might be in
the dust our Saviour wrote in with His blessed hand— I
felt a wownd go to my 'art, in the midst of all its thank-
fulness."

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 727

He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence
af concealing why; and then cleared his voice.

" It warn't for long as Z felt that; for she was found. I
had on'y to think as she was found, and it was gone. T
doen't know why I do so much as mention it now, I'm
sure I didn't have it in my mind a minute ago, to say a
word about myself ; but it come up so nat'ral, that I yielded
to it afore I was aweer."

" You are a self-denying soul," said my aunt, "and will
have your reward."

Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing
athwart his face, made a surprised inclination of the head
towards my aunt, as an acknowledgment of her good opin-
ion ; then, took up the thread he had relinquished.

'■ When my Em' ly took flight," he said, in stern wrath for
the moment, "from the house wheer she was made a pris'-
ner by that theer spotted snake as Mas'r Davy see, — and
his story's trew, and may God confound him! — she took
flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many stars
a shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach,
believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to
turn away our faces, for she was a coming by She heerd
herself a crying out, like as if it was another person ; and
cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt
it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur
she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in
her ears. Of a sudden — or so she thowt, you unnerstand —
the day broke, wet and windy, and she was lying b'low a
heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was a speaking
to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was
it as had gone so much amiss? "

He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as
ie spoke, so vividly, that, in «L? intensity of his earnest-
aess, he presented what he described to me, with greater
distinctness than I can express I can hardly believe,
writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually pres-
ent in these scenes ; they are impressed upon me with such
an astonishing air of fidelity.

"As Em'ly's eyes — which was heavy — see this woman
better," Mr. Peggotty went on, "she know'd as she was
one of them as she had often talked to on the beach. Fur,
though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in the
night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly

728 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all that-
country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no
children of her own, this woman, being a young wife ; but
she was a looking to have one afore long. And may my
prayers go up to Heaven that 'twill be a happ'ness to her,
and a comfort, and a honour, all her life ! May it love her
and be dootiful to her, in her old age ; helpful of her at the
last ; a Angel to her heer, and heerafter ! "

" Amen ! " said my aunt.

" She had been summat timorous and down," said Mr.
Peggotty, "and had sat, at first, a little way off, at her
spinning, or such work as it was, when Em'ly talked to
the children. But Em'ly had took notice of her, and had
gone and spoke to her ; and as the young woman was par-
tial to the children herself, they' had soon made friends.
Sermuchser, that when Em'ly went that way, she always
giv Em'ly flowers. This was her as now asked what it was
that had gone so much amiss. Em'ly told her, and she —
took her home. She did indeed. She took her home,"
said Mr. Peggotty, covering his face.

He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had
ever seen him affected by anything since the night she went
away. My aunt and I did. not attempt to disturb him.

"It was a little cottage, you may suppose," he said,
presently, "but she found space for Em'ly in it, — her hus-
band was away at sea, — and she kep it secret, and pre-
vailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not many
near) to keep it secret too. Em'ly was took bad with
fever, and, what is very strange to me is, — maybe 'tis not
so strange to scholars, — the language of that country went
out of her head, and she could only speak her own, that no
one unnerstood. She recollects, as if she had dreamed it,
that she lay there, always a talking her own tongue, always
believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the
bay, and begging and imploring of 'em to send theer and
tell how she was dying, and bring back a message of for-
giveness, if it was on'y a wured. A'most the whole time,
she thowt, — now, that him as I made mention on just now
was lurking for her unnerneath the winder : now, that him
as had brought her to this was in the room, — and cried to
the good young woman not to give her up, and know'd, at
the same time, that she couldn't unnerstand, and dreaded
that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 729

her eyes, and the roarings in her ears ; and there was nc
to-day, nor yesterday, nor yet to-morrow ; but everything
in her life as ever had been, or as ever could be, and every-
thing as never had been, and as never could be, was a
crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor welcome,
and yet she sang and laughed about it ! How long this
lasted, I doen't know ; but then there come a sleep ; and in
that sleep, from being a many times stronger than her own
self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child."

.Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his:
own description. After being silent for a few moments, he
pursued his story.

"It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and sc
quiet, that there warut a sound but the rippling of that
blue sea without a tide, upon the shore. It was her belief,
at first, that she was at home upon a Sunday morning;
but, the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the hills
beyond, warn't home, and contradicted of her. Then,
come in her friend, to watch alongside of her bed; and
then she know'd as the old boat warn't round that next
pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; and know'd
where she was, and why; and broke out a crying on that
good young woman's bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a
lying now, a cheering of her with its pretty eyes ! "

He could not speak of this good friend of Emily's with-
out a flow of tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down
again, endeavouring to bless her !

" That done my Em'ly good," he resumed, after such
emotion as I could not behold without sharing in ; and as
to my aunt, she wept with all her heart; "that done
Eni'ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the language
of that country was quite gone from her, and she was
forced to make signs. So she went on, getting better from
day to day, slow, but sure, and trying to learn the names
of common things— names as she seemed never to have
heerd in all her life— till one evening come, when she was
a setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play
upon the beach. And of a sudden this child held out her
haud, and said, what would be in English, 'Fisherman's
daughter, here's a shell! ' — for you are to unnerstand that
they used at first to call her ' Pretty lady,' as the ger. era]
way in that country is, and that she had taught 'em to call
her ' Fisherman's daughter.' instead. The child savs ot

730 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

a sudden, * Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell !' Then
Em'ly unnerstands her; and she answers, bursting out a
crying ; and it all conies beck !

"When Em'ly got strong again." said Mr. Peggotty,
after another short interval of silence, " she cast about to
leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country.
The husband was come home, then ; and the two together
put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from
that to France. She had a little money, but it was less
than little as they would take for all they done. I'm
a' most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they
done, is laid up wheer neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal, Mas'r
Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.

"Em'ly got to France, and took service to wait on trav-
elling ladies at a inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one
day, that snake. — Let him never come nigh me. I doen't
know what hurt I might do him! — Soon as she see him,
without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned,
and she fled afore the very breath he draw'd. She come
to England, and was set ashore at Dover.

"I doen't know," said Mr. Peggotty, "for sure, when
her 'art begun to fail her; but all the way to England she
had thowt to come to her dear home. Soon as she got to
England she turned her face tow'rds it. But, fear of not
being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of us
being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her
from it, kiender by force, upon the road: ' Uncle, uncle,'
she says to me, * the fear of not being worthy to do, what
my torn and bleeding breast so longed to do, was the most
fright' ning fear of all! I turned back, when my 'art was
full of prayers that I might crawl to the old doorstep, in
the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be
found dead in the morning.'

"She come," said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to
an awe-stricken whisper, "to London. She — as had never
seen it in her life — alone — without a penny — young — so
pretty — come to London. A'most the moment as she
lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she believed) a
friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-
work as she had been brought up to do, about finding
plenty of it fur her, about a lodging for the night, and
making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 731

home, to-morrow. When my child," he said aloud, and
with an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to
foot, "stood upon the brink of more than I can say or
think on — Martha, trew to her promise, saved her! "

I could not repress a cry of joy.

" Mas'r Davy ! " he said, gripping my hand in that strong
hand of his, " it was you as first made mention of her to
me. I thank'ee, Sir! She was arnest. She had know'd
of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and what to do.
She had done it. And the Lord was above all ! She come.
white and hurried, upon Em'ly in her sleep. She says tc
her, ' Rise up from worse than death, and come with me ! '
Them belonging to the house would have stopped her, but
they might as socn have stopped the sea. ' Stand away
from me,' she says, ' I am a ghost that calls her from
beside her open grave ! ' She told Em'ly she had seen me,
and know'd I loved her, and forgiv her. She wrapped
her, hasty, in her clothes. She took her, faint and trem-
bling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said,
than if she had had no ears. She walked among 'em with
my child, minding only her ; and brought her safe out, in
the dead of the night, from that black pit of ruin !

"She attended on Em'ly," said Mr. Peggotty, who had
released my hand, and put his own hand on his heaving
chest; "she attended to my Em'ly, lying wearied out, and
wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day Then she
went in search of me ; then in search of you, Mas'r Davy.
She didn't tell Em'ly what she come out fur, lest her ;art
should fail, and she should think of hiding of herself.
How the cruel lady know'd of her being theer, I can't say.
Whether him as I have spoke so much of, chanced to se€
'em going theer, or whether (which is most like; to my
thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, I doen't greatly
ask myself. My niece is found.

"All night long," said Mr. Peggotty, "we have been
together, Em'ly and me. 'Tis little (considering the time)
as she has said, in wureds, through them broken-hearted
tears; 'tis less as I have seen of her dear face, as grow'd
into a woman's at my hearth. But, all night long, her
arms has been about my neck ; and her head has laid heer •
and we knows full well, as we can put our trust in one
another, ever more. "

He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested

732 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

there in perfect repose, with a resolution in it that might
have conquered lions.

"It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot," said my aunt,
drying her eyes, "when I formed the resolution of being
godmother to your sister Betsey Trotwood, who disap-
pointed me ; but, next to that, hardly anything would have
given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that
good young creature's baby! "

Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt's
feelings, but could not trust himself with any verbal refer-
ence to the subject of her commendation. We all remained
silent, and occupied with our own reflections (my aunt dry-
ing her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laugh-
ing and calling herself a fool) ; until I spoke.

"You have quite made up your mind," said I to Mr
Peggotty, "as to the future, good friend? I need scarcely
ask you."

"Quite, Mas'r Davy," he returned; "and told Em'ly.
Theer's mighty countries, fur from heer. Our future life
lays over the sea."

"They will emigrate together, aunt," said I

" Yes! " said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. "No
one can't reproach my darling in Australia. We will begk
a new life over theer ! "

I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for
going away.

"I was down at the Docks early this morning, Sir," he
returned, "to get information concerning of them ships.
In about six weeks or two months from now, there'll be
one sailing — I see her this morning — went aboard — and we
shall take our passage in her."

"Quite alone?" I asked.

" Ay, Mas'r Davy ! " he returned. " My sister, you see,
she's that fond of you and yourn, and that accustomed
to think on'y of her own country, that it wouldn't be
hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, theer's one
she has in charge, Mas'r Davy, as doen't ought to be
forgot. "

"Poor Ham!" said I

"My good sister takes care of his house, y:u see, ma'am,
and he takes kindly to her," Mr. Peggotty explained for
my aunt's better information. "He'll set and talk to her,
with a calm spirit, wen it's like he couldn't brine: himself

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 733

to open his lips to another. Poor fellow ! " said Mr. Peg-
gotty, shaking his head, "theer's not so much left him,
that he could spare the little as he has ! "

'• And Mrs. Gum midge? " said I.

" Well, I've had a mort of con-sideration, I do tell you,"
returned Mr. Peggotty, with a perplexed look which grad-
ually cleared as he went on, " concerning of Missis Gum-
midge. You see, wen Missis Gum midge falls a thinking
of the old 'un, she an't what you may call good company.
Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy— and you, ma' am — wen
Missis Gummidge takes to wimickiug," — our old county
word for crying, — "she's liable to be considered to be, by
them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like. Now I dvd
know the old 'un," said Mr. Peggotty, "and I know'd his
merits, so I unnerstan' her; but 'tan't entirely so, you see,
with others — nat'rally can't be! "

My aunt and I both acquiesced,

"Wheerby," said Mr. Peggotty, "my sister might— I
doen' t say she would, but might— find Missis Gummidge
give her a leetle trouble now-and-again. Theerfur 'tan't
my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge 'long with them,
but to find a Bein' fur her wheer she can fisherate f ?r her-
self." (A Bein' signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to
fisherate is to provide.) "Fur which purpose," said Mr.
Peggotty, "I means to make her a 'lowance afore I go,
as' 11 leave her pretty comfort 'ble. She's the faithfullest
of creeturs. 'Tan't to be expected, of course, at her time
of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old mawther
is to be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and
wilds of a new and fur-away country. So that's what I'm
a going to do with her,'*

He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims
and strivings, but his own.

"Em'ly," he continued, "will keep along with me — poor
^hild, she's sore in need of peace and rest! — until such time
as we goes upon our voyage. She'll work at them clothes,
as must be made ; and I hope her troubles will begin to
seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once
more by her rough but loving uncle."

My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted
great satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty.

"Theer's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy," said he, put-
ting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravel}' taking out

734 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

the little paper bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled
on the table. " Theer' s these heer bank-notes — fifty pound,
and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she come
away with. I've asked her about that (but not saying
why), and have added of it up; I an't a scholar- Would
you be so kind as see how 'tis? "

He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece
of paper, and observed me while I looked it over. It was
quite right.

"Thank'ee, Sir," he said, taking it back. "This money,
if you doen't see objections, Mas'r Davy, I shall put up
jest afore I go, in a cover directed to him; and put that up
in another, d'rected to his mother. I shall tell her, in no
more wureds than I speak to you, what it's the price on;,
and that I'm gone, and past receiving of it back."

I told him that I thought it would be right to do so—
that I was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt
it to be right.

"I said that theer was on'y one thing furder," he pro-
ceeded with a grave smile, when he had made up his little
bundle again, and put it in his pocket; "but theer was two.
I warn't sure in my mind, wen I come out this morning, as
I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what had so
thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out,
and put it in the post-office, telling of 'em how all was as
'tis, and that I should come down to-morrow to unload my
mind of what little needs a doing of down theer, and, most-
like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth."

" And do you wish me to go with you? " said I, seeing
that he left something unsaid.

" If you could do me that kind favour, Mas'r Davy," he re-
plied, "I know tho sight on you would cheer 'em up a bit."

My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous
that I should go — as I found on talking it over with her —
I readily pledged myself to accompany him in accordance
with his wish. ISText morning, consequently, we were on
the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old
ground.

As we passed along the familiar street at night — Mr.
Peggotty, in despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my
bag — I glanced into Onier and Joram's shop, and saw my
old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his pipe. I feit reluc-
tant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his sister

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 735

and Ham; and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering
behind.

" How is Mr. Omer, after this long time? * said I, going
in

He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might
get a better view of me, and soon recognised me with
great delight.

" I should get up, Sir, to acknowledge such an honour
as this visit," said he, "only my limbs are rather out of
sorts, and I am wheeled about. With the exception o^
my limbs and my breath, hows 'ever, I am as hearty as
man can be, I'm thankful to say."

I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good
spirits, and saw, now, that his easy-chair went od wheels

" It's an ingenious thing, ain't it? " he inquired, follow-
ing the direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow
with his arm. "It runs as light as a feather, and tracks
as true as a mail-coach. Bless you, my little Minnie — my
grand-daughter you know, Minnie's child — puts her little
strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we
go, as clever and merry as ever you see anything ! And I
tell you what — it's a most uncommon chair to smoke a
pipe in."

I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of
a thing, and find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer.
He was as radiant, as if his chair, his asthma, and the
failure of his limbs, were the various branches of a great
invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe.

"I see more of the world, I can assure you," said Mr.
Omer, "in this chair, than ever I see out of it. You'd be
surprised at the number of people that looks in of a day to
have a chat. You really would! There's twice as much
n the newspaper, since I've taken to this chair, as there
used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of
it I do get through! That's what I feel so strong, you
know! If it had been my eyes, what should I have done?
If it had been my ears, what should I have done? Being
my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only
made my breath shorter when I used 'em. And now, if I
want to go out into the street or down to the sands, I've
only got to call Dick, Joram's youngest 'prentice, and
away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord Mayor of
London. "

736 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

He half suffocated himself with laughing here.

'' Lord, bless you ! " said Mr. Onier, resuming his pipe>
"a man must take the fat with the lean; that's what he
must make up his mind to, in this life. Joram does a fine
business. Ex-cellent business ! "

" I am very glad to hear it," said I.

"I knew you would be," said Mr. Omer. "And Joram
and Minnie are like valentines. What more can a man
expect? What's his limbs to that? "

His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smok-
ing, was one of the pleasantest oddities I have ever encoun-
tered.

" And since I've took to general reading, you've tock to
general writing, eh, Sir? " said Mr. Omer, surveying me
admiringly. " What a lovely work that was of yours ! What
expressions in it! I read it every word — every word.
And as to feeling sleepy ! Not at all ! *

I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must con-
fess that I thought this association of ideas significant.

" I give you my word and honour, Sir," said Mr. Omer,
" that when I lay that book upon the table, and look at it
outside; compact in three separate and indiwidual wol-
lumes — one, two, three; I am as proud as Punch to think
that I once had the honour of being connected with your
family. And dear me, it's a long time ago, now, ain't it?
Over at Blunderstone. With a pretty little party laid along
with the other party. And you quite a small party then,
yourself. Dear, dear ! "

I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After
assuring him that I did not forget how interested he had
always been in her, and how kindly he had always treated
her, I gave him a general account of her restoration to her
uncle by the aid of Martha ; which I knew would please
the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and
said, feelingly, when I had done :

" I am rejoiced at it, Sir ! It's the best news i have heard
for many a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what's going to
De undertook for that unfortunate young woman, Martha,
new?"

" You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwell-
ing on since yesterday," said I, "but on which I can give
you no information yet, Mr. Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not
alluded to it. and I have a delicacy in doing so. 1 am sure

OF DAVID OOFFEKFIELD.

ne has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is disin-
terested and good."

" Because you know, " said Mr. Omer, taking himself up,
where he had left off, " whatever is done, I should wish to
be a member of. Put me down for anything you may con -
sider right, and let me know. I never could think the girl
all bad, and I am glad to find she's not. So will my
daughter Minnie be. Young women are contradictory crea-
tures in some things — her mother was just the same as her
—but their hearts are soft and kind. It's all show with
Minnie, about Martha. Why she should consider it neces-
sary to make any show, I don't undertake to tell you. But
it's all show, bless you. She'd do her any kindness in
private. So, put me down for whatever you may consider
right, will you be so good? and drop me a line where to
forward it. Dear me ! " said Mr. Omer, " when a man is
drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life
meet : when he finds himself, however hearty he ia, being
wheeled about for the second time, in a speeches of go-
cart ; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness il he can.
He wants plenty. And I don't speak of myself, particu-
lar," said Mr. Omer, "because, Sir, the way I looi at it is,
that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hhi, what-
ever age we are, on account of time never standing still for
a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be
over-rejoiced. To be sure! "

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a
ledge in the back of his chair, expressly made for its recep-
tion.

"There's Em'ly's cousin, him that she was to have been
married to," said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, " as
fine a fellow as there is in Yarmouth ! He'll come and
talk or read to me, in the evening, for an hour together
sometimes. That's a kindness, I should call it! All his
^iie't a kindness."

"Iain going to see him now," said I.

" Are you? " said Mr. Omer. " Tell him I was hearty,
and sent my respects. Minnie and Joram's at a ball.
They would be as proud to see you as I am, if they was at
home. Minnie won't hardly go out at all, you -see, 'on
account of father,' as she says. So I swore to-night, that
if she didn't go, I'd go to bed at six. In consequence of
which," Mr. Omer shook himself and his chair, with laugh-

738 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ter at the success of his device, "she and Jorani's at 3
ball."

I shook hands with him, and wished him good night.

"Half a minute, Sir," said Mr. Oiner. "If you was to
go without seeing my little elephant, you'd lose the best of
sights. You never see such a sight! Minnie! "

A musical little voice answered, from somewhere up-
stairs, " I am coming, grandfather ! " and a pretty little
girl with long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into
the shop.

" This is my little elephant, Sir," said Mr. Omer, fondling
the child. " Siamese breed, Sir. Now, little elephant! "

The little elephant set the door of the parlour open,
enabling me to see that, in these latter $ays, it was con-
verted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer, who could not be
easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty fore-
head} and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr
Oder's chair.

"The elephant butts, you know, Sir," said Mr. Omer,
winking, "when he goes at a object. Once, elephant.
Twice. Three times!"

At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that
was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the
chair round with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-
mell, into the parlour, without touching the doorpost : Mr.
Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking
back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue
of his life's exertions.

After a stroll about the town, I went to Ham's house.
Peggotty had now removed here for good ; and had let her
own house to the successor of Mr. Barkis in the carrying
business, who had paid her very well for the good-will,
cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that
Mr. Barkis drove, was still at work.

I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs.
Gummidge, who had been fetched from the old boat by
Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if she could have been
induced to desert her post, by anyone else. He had evi-
dently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge
had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped
out "to take a turn on the beach." He presently came
home, very glad to see me; and I hope they were all the
better for my being there. We spoke, with some approach

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 739

to cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty' s growing rich in a new
country, and of the wonders he would describe in his let-
ters. We said nothing of Emily by name, but distantly
referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest of
the party.

But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little
chamber where the Crocodile Book was lying ready for me
on the table, that he always was the same. She believed
(she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted ; though
he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked
harder and better than any boat-builder in any yard in all
that part. There were times, she said, of an evening,
when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and
then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never men-
tioned her as a woman.

I thought I had read in his face that he would like to
speak to me alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in
his way next evening, as he came home from his work.
Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. That night,
for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was
taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old
hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the
old sound round his head.

All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-
boat and tackle ; in packing up, and sending to London by
waggon, such of his little domestic possessions as he thought
would be useful to him ; and in parting with the rest, or
bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with him
all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place
once -more, before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them
there in the evening. But I so arranged it, as that I should
meet Ham first.

It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he
worked. I met him at a retired part of the sands, which
I knew he would cross, and turned back with him, that he
might have^ leisure to speak to me if he really wished. I
Haad not mistaken the expression of his face. We had
walked but a little way together, when he said, without
looking at me :

" Mas'r Davy, have you seen her? "

" Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon," I softly
answered.

We walked a little farther, and he saich

740 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Mas'r Davy, shall you see her, d'ye think? "

"It would be too painful to her, perhaps," said I.

"I have thowt of that," he replied. "So 'twould5 Sk,
bo 'twould."

"But, Hani," said I, gently, "if there is anything that
I could write to her, for you, in case I could not tell it ; if
there is anything you would wish to make known to her
through me; I should consider it a sacred trust."

"I am sure on't. I thank' ee, Sir, most kind! I think
theer is something I could wish said or wrote."

"What is it?"

We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke.

" 'Tan't that I forgive her. - 'Tau't that so much, 'Tis
more as I beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my
affections upon her. Odd times, I think that if I hadn't
had her promise fur to marry me, Sir, she was that trustful
of me, in a friendly way, that she'd have told me what was
struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me,
and I might have saved her."

I pressed his hand. " Is that all? "

" Theer' s yet a something else," he returned, "if I can
say it, Mas'r Davy."

We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before
he spoke again. He was not crying when he made the
pauses I shall express by lines. He was merely collecting
himself to speak very plainly.

" I loved her — and I love the mem'ry of her — too deep —
to be able to lead her to believe of my own self as I'm a
happy man. I could only be happy— by forgetting of her
— and I'm afeerd I couldn't hardly bear as she should be
told I done that. But if you, being so full of learning,
Mas'r Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring
her to believe I wasn't greatly hurt : still loving of her, and
mourning for her : anything as might bring her to believe
as I was not tired of my life, and yet was hoping fur to
see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease from trou-
bling and the weary are at rest — anything as would ease her
sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever
marry, or as 'twas possible that anyone could ever be to me
what she was — I should ask of you to say that — with my
prayers for her — that was so dear."

I pressed b's manly hand again, and told him I would
charge myselt to do this as well as T could

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 741

"I thank ee, Sir," he answered " 'Twas kind of you to
meet me. 'Twas kind of you to bear him company down.
Mas'r Davy, I unnerstan' very well, though my aunt will-
come toLon'on afore they sail, and they'll unite once niore,
that I am not like to see him agen. I fare tc feel sure oii't.
We doen't say so, but so 'twill be, and better so. The last
you see on him — the very last — will you give him the lov*
ingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more-
than a father to? "

This I also promised, faithfully.

"I thank' ee agen, Sir," he said, heartily shaking hands
" I know where you're a going Good bye ! "

With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to
me that he could not enter the old place, he turned away.
As I looked after his figure, crossing the waste in the moon-
light, I saw him turn his face towards a strip of silvery
light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until he was
a shadow in the distance

The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached ;.
and, on entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture,
saving one of the old lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge,
with a basket on her knee, was seated, looking at Mr. Peg-
gotty. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece,
and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate ; but he-
raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in
a cheery manner.

" Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to't, eh,
Mas'r Davy?" he said, taking up the candle. "Bare
enough now, an't it? "

" Indeed you have made good use of the time," said I.

" Why, we have not been idle, Sir. Missis Gummidge
has worked like a— I doen't know what Missis Gummidge
ain't worked Hke," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at her, at a
loss for a sufficiently-approving simile.

Mrs Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no obser
vation.

" Theer's the very iocker that you used to sit on, 'long
with Em'ly ! " said Mr Peggotty, in a whisper. " I'm a
going to carry it away with me, last of all. And heer's
your old little bedroom, see, Mas'r Davy! A'most as bleak
to-night, as 'art could wish! '*

In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn.
6ound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered

742 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wailing that was very mournful. Everything was gone.
down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame, T
thought of myself, lying hese, when that first great change
was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed
child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth-
and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near
at hand, and. liable to be met at any turn.

" 'Tis like to be long," said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice,
" afore the boat finds new tenants. They look upon't, down
heer, as being unfort'nate new! "

" Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood? * I
asked.

" To a mast-maker up town," said Mr. Peggotty. " I'm
a going to give the key to him to-night. "

We looked into the other little room, and came back to
Mrs. Gummidge, sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty,
putting the light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise,
that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing
the candle.

" Dan' 1," said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her
basket, and clinging to his arm, "niy dear Dan'l, the part-
ing words I speak in this house is, I mustn't be left behind.
Doen't ye think of leaving me behind, Dan'11 Oh, doen't
ye ever do it ! "

Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge
to me, and from me to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been
awakened from a sleep.

"Doen't ye, dearest Dan'l, doen't ye! " cried Mrs. Gum-
midge, fervently. "Take me 'long with you, Dan'l, take
me 'long with you and Em'ly! I'll be your servant, con-
stant and trew. If there' s slaves in them parts where you're
a going, I'll be bound to you for one, and happy, but doen't
ye leave me behind, Dan'l, that's a deary dear! "

:'My good soul," said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head,
* you doen't know what a long voyage, and what a hard
life 'tis."

" Yes I do, Dan'l ! I can guess ! " cried Mrs. Gummidge.
" But my parting words under this roof is, I shall go into
the house and die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan'l. I
can work. I can live hard. I can be loving and. patient
now — more than you think, Dan'l, if you'll on'y try me.
I wouldn't touch the 'lowance, not if I was dying of want,
Dan'l Peggotty; but I'll go with you and Em'ly, if you'l*

OF DAVID COPPERFIELU ?4£

on'y let me, to the world's end! I know how 'tis; I knew
you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, t'an't
bo no more ! I ain't sat here, so long, a watching, and a
thinking of your trials, without some good being done me.
Mas'r Davy, speak to him for me ! I knows his ways, and
Em'ly's, and I knows their sorrows, and can be a comfort
to 'em, some odd times, and labour for Jem alius ! Dan'l,
dear Dan'l, let me go 'long with you ! "

And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with
a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devo-
tion and gratitude, that he well deserved.

We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle,
fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close
Bhut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. Next day, when
we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gum-
midge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs.
Gummidge was happy.

CHAPTER LIL

I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION.

When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteri-
ously, was within four-and-twenty hours of being come, my
aunt and I consulted how we should proceed ; for my aunt
was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah! how easily I car-
ried Dora up and down stairs, now !

We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber's stipu-
lation for my aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should
stay at home, and be represented by Mr. Dick and me. In
short, we had resolved to take this course, when Dora again
unsettled us by declaring that she never would forgive her-
self, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt re-
mained behind, on any pretence.

" I won't speak to you," said Dora, shaking her curls at
my aunt. "I'll be disagreeable! I'll make Jip bark at
you all day. I shall be sure that you really are a cross old
thing, if you don't go ! "

" Tut, Blossom ! " laughed my aunt u You know you
can't do without me ! "

7U PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" Yes, I can," said Dora. " You are no use to ine at all
You never run up and down stairs for me, all day long.
You never sit and tell me stories about Doady, when his
shoes were worn out, and he was covered with dust — oh,
what a poor little mite of a fellow ! You never do anything
at all to please me, do you, dear? " Dora made haste to
kiss my aunt, and say, " Yes, you do! I'm only joking! "
— lest my aunt should think she really meant it.

'"But, aunt," said Dora, coaxingly, "now listen. You
/nust go. I shall tease you, till you let me have my own
way about it. I shall lead my naughty boy such a life, if
he don't make you go. I shall make myself so disagreeable
— and so will Jip! You'll wish you had gone, like a good
thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don't go. Besides,"
said Dora, putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly
at my aunt and me, "why shouldn't you both go? I am
not very ill indeed. Am I? "

" Why, what a question ! " cried my aunt

" What a fancy ! " said I.

" Yes ! I know I am a silly little thing ! " said Dora,
slowly looking from one of us to the other, and then putting
up her pretty lips to kiss us as she lay upon her couch.
" Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not believe you ;
and then I shall cry ! "

I saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now,
and Dora brightened again, as she saw it too.

"You'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll
take at least a week to make me understand ! " said Dora.
" Because I knoiv I shan't understand, for a length of time,
if there's any business in it. And there's sure to be some
business in it! If there's anything to add up, besi
don't know when I shall make it out ; and my bad boy wil-
look so miserable all the time. There ! Now you'll go,
won't you? You'll only be gone one night, and Jip will
take care of me while you are gone. Doady will carry me
up-stairs before you go, and I won't come down agaii
you come back ; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully
scolding letter from me, because she has never been to see
us!"

We agreed, without any more consultation, that we w
both go, and that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned
to be rather unwell, because she liked to be petted. Sho
was greatly pleased, and very merry ; and we four, that is

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 745

to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went down to
Canterbury by the Dover mail that night.

At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to
await him, which we got into, with some trouble, in the
middle of the night, I found a letter, importing that he
would appear in the morning punctually at half -past nine.
After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour,
to our respective beds, through various close passages;
which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages, in a
solution of soup and stables.

Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old
tranquil streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the
venerable gateways and churches. The rooks were sailing
about the Cathedral towers; and the towers themselves,
overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country
and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning
air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet
the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully' of change
in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty
Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived
and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells
had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince
hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had
lost themselves in air, as circles do in water.

I looked at the old house from the corner of the street,
but did not go nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might
unwittingly do any harm to the design I had come to aid.
The early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lat-
tice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams
of its old peace seemed to touch my heart.

I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then
returned by the main street, which in the interval had
shaken off its last night's sleep Among those who were
stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient enemy the butcher,
now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business for
himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a
benignant member of society.

We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat
dowj to breakfast. As it approached nearer and nearer
to half -past nine o'clock, our restless expectation of Mr.
Micawber increased. At last we made no more pretence
of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had
been a mere form from the ftrst ; but my aunt walked up

V4to PERSONAL, HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

and down the room, Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to
read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling ; and I looked
out of the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber' H
coining. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime
of the half -hour, he appeared in the street.

" Here he is," said I, " and not in his legal attire! "

My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come
down to breakfast in it) , and put on her shawl, as if she
were ready for anything that was resolute and uncompro-
mising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a letermined air.
Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but
leeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with
Doth hands, as firmly over his ears as he possibly could ;
ani instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr. Micawber.

" Gentlemen, and madam," said Mr. Micawoer, *• good
morning! My dear Sir," to Mr. Dick, who shook hands
with him violently, " you are extremely good. *

" Have' you breakfasted? " said Mr. Dick " Have a
chop!"

"l Not for the world, my good Sir! " cried Mr Micawoer,
stopping him on Itis way to the bell ; " appetite and mysen,
Mr. Dixon, have long been strangers."

Mr. Dixon was so pleased with his new name, and ap
peared to think it so very obliging in Mr. Micawber to con
fer it upon him, that he shook hands with him again, and
iaughed rather childishly.

" Dick," said my aunt, " attention ! "

Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush

"Now, Sir," said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she pni
on her gloves, "we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or any-
thing else, as soon as yon please."

"Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "I trust you wit
shortly witness an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have youi
permission, I believe, to mention here that we have been
in communication together? "

" It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield," said Traddles
to whom I looked in surprise. "Mr. Micawber has con
suited me, in reference to what he has in contemj iation ;
and I have advised him to the best of my judgment "

" Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles," pursued Mr
Micawber, n what I contemplate is a disclosure of an im
portant nature."

"Highly so." said TradrtUw

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 747

"Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentle-
men, " said Mr. Micawber, " you will do me the favour to
submit yourselves, for the moment, to the direction of one,
who, however unworthy to be regarded in any other light
but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature,
is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original
form by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a
combination of circumstances? "

"We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,"
said I, " and will do what you please."

"Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, "your con*
fidence is not, at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I
would beg to be allowed a start of five minutes by the
clock ; and then to receive the present company, inquiring
for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep,
whose Stipendiary I am."

My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his ap-
proval.

"I have no more," observed Mr. Micawber, "to say at
present."

With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all
in a comprehensive bow, and disappeared ; his manner be-
ing extremely distant, and his face extremely pale.

Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair
standing upright on the top of it), when I looked to him
for an explanation ; so I took out my watch, and, as a last
resource, counted off the five minutes. My aunt, with her
own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was
expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out
together to the old house, without saying one word on the
way

We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office
on the ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write,
hard The large office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat,
and was not so well concealed but that a foot or more of
that instrument protruded from his bosom, like a new kind
of shirt-frill.

As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I
said aloud :

" How do you do, Mr. Micawber? "

"Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, gravely, "I hope
I see you well? "

" Is Miss Wickfield at home? " said 1

748 PERSONAL HISTORY AMD EXPEELEINUE

"Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, Sir, of a rheumatic
fever, "he returned; "but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt,
will be happy to see old friends. Will you walk in,
Sir? "

He preceded us to the dining-room — the first room I had
entered in that house — and flinging open the door of Mr
Wickfield' s former office, said, in a sonorous voice:

"Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas
Tiaddles, and Mr. Dixon! "

I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow.
Our visit astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare
say, because it astonished ourselves. He did not gather
his eyebrows together, for he had none worth mentioning •
but he frowned to that degree that he almost closed his
small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to
his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was
only when we were in the act of entering his room, and
when I caught a glance at him over my aunt's shoulder.
A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as
ever.

"Well, I am sure," he said. "This is indeed an unex-
pected pleasure ! To have, as I may say, all friends round
Saint Paul's, at once, is a treat unlooked for! Mr. Cop-
perfield, I hope I see you well, and — if I may umbly ex-
press self so — friendly towards them as is ever your friends,
whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, Sir, I hope she's getting
on. We have been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts
we have had of her state, lately, I do assure you. "

I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not
know yet what else to do.

" Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since
f was a numble clerk, and held your pony; ain't they?"
said Uriah, with his sickliest smile. "Bm, L am not
changed, Miss Trotwood."

"Well, Sir," returned my aunt, "to tell you the truth, I
think you are pretty constant to the promise of your youth ;
if that's any satisfaction to you."

' Thank you, Miss Trotwood,'^ said Uriah, writhing i»j
his ungainly manner, "for your good opinion! Micawbe:-
tell 'em to let Miss Agnes know — and mother. Mothei
will be quite in a state, when she sees the present com-
pany ! " said Uriah, setting chairs.

"You are not busy, Mr. Heep?" said Traddles, whose

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 749

eye the cunning red eye accidentally caught, as it at once
scrutinised and evaded us.

"No, Mr. Traddles," replied Uriah, resuming his official
seat, and squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm,
between his bony knees. "Not so much so, as I could
wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not easily
satisfied, you know ! Xot but what myself and Micawber
have our hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr.
Wiekfield's being hardly fit for any occupation, Sir. But
it's a pleasure as well as a duty, I am sure, to work for
him. You've not been intimate with Mr. Wickfiold, I
think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I've only had the honour
of seeing you once myself? "

"Xo, I have not been intimate with Mr. AYickfield," re-
turned Traddles ; " or I might perhaps have waited on you
long ago, Mr. Heep."

There was something in the tone of this reply, which
made Uriah look at the speaker again, with a very sinister
and suspicious expression. But, seeing only Traddles,
with his good-natured face, simple manner, and hair on
end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole
body, but especially his throat :

" I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have
admired him as much as we all do. His little failings would
only have endeared him to you the more. But if you would
like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, I
should refer you to Copperfleld. The family is a subject
he's very strong upon, if you never heard him."

I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I
should have done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes,
now ushered in by Mr. Micawber. She was not quite so
self-possessed as usual, I thought ; and had evidently un-
dergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality,
and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it.

I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us ; and he re-
minded me of an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good
spirit. In the meanwhile, some slight sign passed between
Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles, unobserved
except by me, went out.

"Don't wait, Micawber," said Uriah.
Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast,
stood erect before the door, most unmistakably contemplat
ing one of his fellow-men, and that man his employer.

750 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

*• What are you waiting for? " said Uriah. '* Micawber!
did you hear me tell you not to wait ? *

"Yes! " replied the immovable Mr. Micawber

u Then why do you wait ? n said Uriah.

"Because I — in short choose," replied Mr. Micawbei.
with a burst.

Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome pale-
uess, still faintly tinged by his pervading red, overspread
them He looked at Mr. Micawber attentively, with his
/hole face breathing short and quick in every feature.

" You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,'-'
ne said, with an effort at a smile, "and I am afraid you'll
oblige me to get rid of you. Go along! I'll talk to you
presently."

" If there is a scoundrel on this earth," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehe-
mence, " with whom I have already talked too much, that
scoundrel's name is — Heep! "

Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Look-
ing slowly round upon us with the darkest and wickedest
expression that his face could wear, he said, in a lower
voice ;

" Oho ! This is a conspiracy I You have met here, by
appointment ! You are playing Booty with my clerk, are
you, Copperfield? Now, take care. You'll make nothing
of this. We understand each other, you and me. There's
no love between us. You were always a puppy with a
proud stomach, from your first coming here; and you en^y
me my rise, do you? None of your plots against me; I'D
counterplot you! Micawber, you be off. I'll talk to you
presently."

"Mr. Micawber," said 1, "there is a sudden change in
this fellow, in more respects than the extraordinary one of
his speaking the truth in one particular, which assures me
that he is brought to bay Deal with him as he deserves! "

" You are a precious set of people, ain't you? " said Uriah,
in the same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat,
which he wiped from his forehead, with his long lean hand,
*' to buy over my clerk, who is the very scum of society, —
as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it, before any
one had charity on you, — to defame me with his lies? Miss
Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I'll stop your hus-
band shorter than will be pleasant to you. I won't know

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 751

your story professionally, for nothing, old lady! Miss
Wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you had
better not join that gang. I'll ruin him, if you do. Now,
come ! I have got some ©f you under the harrow. Think
twice, before it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micaw-
ber, if you don't want to be crushed. I recommend you to
take yourself off, and be talked to presently, you fool!
while "there's time to retreat. Where's mother?" he said,
suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of
Traddles, and pulling down the bell-rope. " Fine doings in
a person's own house ! n

"Mrs. Heep is here, Sir," said Traddles, returning with
that worthy mother of a worthy son. "I have taken the
liberty of making myself known to her."

" Who are you to make yourself known? " retorted Uriah.
"And what do you want here? "

"I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, Sir," said
Traddles, in a composed business-like way. " And I have
a power of attorney from him in my pocket, to act for him
in all matters."

"The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,"
said Uriah, turning uglier than before, " and it has been
got from him by fraud ! "

" Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,"
returned Traddles quietly; "and so do you, Mr. Heep.
We will refer that question, if you please, to Mr. Micawber."

"XJry ! " Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.

"You hold your tongue, mother," he returned; "least
said, soonest mended."

"But my Uiy "

"Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me? "

Though I had long known that his servility was false,
and all his pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no
adequate conception of the extent of his hypocrisy, until I
now saw him with his mask off. The suddenness with
which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was useless
to him ; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed ; the
leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil
he had done — all this time being desperate too, and at his
wits' end for the means of getting the better of us — though
perfectly consistent with the experience I had of him, at
first took even me by surprise, who had known him so long,
and disliked him so heartily.

752 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

i say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood
eyeing us, one after another ; for I had always understood
that he hated me, and I remembered the marks of my hand
upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed on to Agnes,
and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her
slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment,
of the odious passions that had led him to aspire to one
whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, I was
shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour,
within sight of such a man.

After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and
some looking at us with those bad eyes, over his grisly
fingers, he made one more address to me, half whining,
and half abusive.

" You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who
pride yourself so much on your honour and all the rest of
it, to sneak about my place, eavesdropping with my clerk?
If it had been me, 1 shouldn't have wondered; for I don't
make myself out a gentleman (though I never was in the
streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but
being you! — And you're not afraid of doing this, either?
You don't think at all of what I shall do, in return; or of
getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy and so forth?
Very well. We shall see! Mr. What's-your-name, you
were going to refer some question to Micawber. There's
your referee. Why don't you make him speak? He has
learned his lesson, I see."

Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of
us, he sat on the edge of his table with his hands in his
pockets, and one of his splay feet twisted round the other
leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow.

Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus
far with the greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly in-
terposed with the first syllable of ScouN-drel ! without get-
ting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler from
his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced
fxom his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of
a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish,
and glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic
admiration of their style of composition, he began to read
as follows :

" ' Dear Miss Tiotwood and gentlemen ' "

* Bless and save the man f " exclaimed my aunt in a hytf

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 753

voice. " He'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital
offence ! "

Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.

" ' In appearing before you to denounce probably the
most consummate Villain that has ever existed/ " Mr.
Micawber, without looking off the letter, pointed the ruler,
like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, " ' I ask no con-
sideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of
pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond,
I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing circum-
stances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have,
collectively or separately, been the attendants of my

The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself,
as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled
by the'emphasis with which he read his letter ; and the kind
of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when
he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.

" ' In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and
Madness, I entered the office — or, as our lively neighbour
the Gaul would term it, the Bureau — of the Firm, nominally
conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and — Heep,
but, in reality, wielded by Heep alone. Heep, and only
Heep, is the mainspring of that machine. Heep, and only
Heep, is the Forger and the Cheat.' "

Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart
at the letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with
a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing
knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It
dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow
sounded as if it had fallen on wood.

" The Devil take you ! " said Uriah, writhing in a new
way with pain. " I'll be even with you."

"Approach me again, you — you — you Heep of infamy,"
gasped Mr. Micawber, "and if your head is human, I'll
break it. Come on, come on ! "

I think I never saw anything more ridiculous — I was
sensible of it, even at the time — than Mr. Micawber mak-
ing broadsword guards with the ruler, and crying, " Come
on ! " while Traddles and I pushed him back into a corner,
from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in
emerging again.

His enemy, muttering to himself- after wringing his
48

754 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wounded hand for some time, slowly drew off hi? neck-
kerchief and bound it up ; then, held it in his other hand,
and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down

Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded
with his letter.

" ' The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which
I entered into the service of — Heep,' " always pausing be-
fore that word and uttering it with astonishing vigour,
" ' were not defined, beyond the pittance, of twenty-two
shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent
on the value of my professional exertions ; in other and
more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the
cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the gen-
eral moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself
and — Heep. Need I say, that it soon became necessary
for me to solicit from — Heep — pecuniary advances towards
the support of Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising
family? Need I say that this necessity had been foreseen
by— Heep? That those advances were secured by I 0 XT' s
and other similar acknowledgments, known to the legal in-
stitutions of this country? And that I thus became im-
meshed in the web he had spun for my reception? ' "

Mr. Micawber* s enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in
describing this unfortunate state of things, really seemed
to outweigh any pain or anxiety that the reality could have
caused him. He read on :

"'Then it was that — Heep — began to favour me with
just so much of his confidence, as was necessary to the dis-
charge of his infernal business. Then it was that I began,
if I may so Shake spearianiy express myself, to dwindle,
peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly
called into requisition for the falsification of business, and
the mystification of an individual whom I will designate as
Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept in ignor-
ance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this
while, the ruffian— Heep— was professing unbounded grati-
tude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused
gentleman. This was bad enough ; but, as the philosophic
Dane observes, with that unrveisal applicability which dis-
tinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethan Era,
worse remains behind! ' "

Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy
rounding off with a quotation , that he indulged himself

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 755

and us, with a second reading of the sentence, under pre-
tence of having lost his place.

"' It is not my intention,' " he continued, reading on,
" ' to enter on a detailed list, within the compass of the
present epistle (though it is ready elsewhere), of the vari-
ous malpractices of a minor nature, affecting the individual
whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I have been a
tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest
within myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and
no baker, existence and non-existence, ceased, was to take
advantage of my opportunities to discover and expose the
major malpractices committed, to that gentleman's grievous
wrong and injury, by — Heep. Stimulated by the silent
monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing
monitor without — to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W.
— I entered on a not unlaborious task of clandestine in-
vestigation, protracted now, to the best of my knowledge,
information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve
calendar months. ' "

He read this passage, as if it were from an Act of Parlia-
ment; and appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of
the words.

"' My charges against — Heep,' " he read on, glancing at
him, and drawing the ruler into a convenient position under
his left arm, in case of need, " ' are as follows.' "

We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held
his.

"'First,' " said Mr. Micawber. "When Mr. W.'s fac-
ulties and memory for business became, through causes
into which it is not necessary or expedient for me to enter,
weakened and confused, — Heep — designedly perplexed and
complicated the whole of the official transactions. When
Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business, — Heep — was
always at hand to force him to enter on it. He obtained
Mr. W.'s signature under such circumstances to documents
of importance, representing them to be other documents of
no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to
draw out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amount-
ing to twelve six fourteen, two and nine, and employed it
to meet pretended business charges and deficiencies which
were either already provided for, or had never really existed.
He gave this proceeding, throughout, the appearance of
baving originated in Mi. W ;sown dishonest intention, ano

756 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of having been accomplished by Mr. W. 's own dishonest act -
and has used it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.' *

" You shall prove this, you Copperfield ! " said Uriah,
with a threatening shake of the head. "All in gooo
time!"

"Ask — Heep — Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house
after him," said Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the let-
ter; "will you?"

" The fool himself — and lives there now," said Uriah,
disdainfully.

"Ask — Heep — if he ever kept a pocket-book iD that
house," said Mr. Micawber; "will you?"

I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the
scraping of his chin.

"Or ask him," said Mr. Micawber, "if he ever burnt one
there. If he says Yes, and asks you where the ashes are,
refer him to Wilkins Micawber, and he will hear of some-
thing not at all to his advantage ! ' '

The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber deliv-
ered himself of these words, had a powerful effect in
alarming the mother ; who cried out in much agitation :

" Ury, Ury ! Be umble, and make terms, my dear ! "

"Mother!" he retorted, "will you keep quiet? You're
in a fright, and don' t know what you say or mean. Umble ! n
he repeated, looking at me, with a snarl; "I've umbled
some of 'em for a pretty long time back, umble as I was ! n

Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat,
presently proceeded with his composition.

"' Second. Heep has, on several occasions, to the best
of my knowledge, information, and belief ' "

"But that won't do," muttered Uriah, relieved.
"Mother, you keep quiet."

" We will endeavour to provide something that will do.
and do for you finally, Sir, very shortly," replied Mr.
Micawber.

" ' Second. Heep has, on several occasions, to the best
of my knowledge, information, and belief, systematically
forged, to various entries, books, and documents, the signa-
ture of Mr. W. ; and has distinctly done so in one instancef
capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following, that
is to say : ' "

Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling
up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 75?

case, /vas, I must say, not at all peculiar to him. I have
observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men.
It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal
oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves
mightily when they come to several good words in succes-
sion, for the expression of one idea ; as, that they utterly
detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old
anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We
talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise
over them too ; we are fond of having a large superfluous
establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions ;
we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are
not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state
occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the
meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary considera-
tion, if there be but a great parade of them. And as in-
dividuals get into trouble by making too great a show of
liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against
their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has
got into many great difficulties, and will get into many
greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.
Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips :
" ' To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W
being infirm, and it being within the bounds of probability
that his decease might lead to some discoveries, and to the
downfall of — Heep's — power over the W. family, — as I,
Wilkins Mieawber, the undersigned, assume — unless the
filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced
from allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs
to be ever made, the said — Heep— deemed it expedient to
have a bond ready by him, as from Mr. W., for the before-
mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and nine, with
interest, stated therein to have been advanced by — Heep — ■
to Mr. W. to save Mr. W*. from dishonour ; though really
the sum was never advanced by him, and has long been
replaced. The signatures to this instrument, purporting
to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins Mieaw-
ber, are forgeries by — Heep. I have, in my possession, in
his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr.
W.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible
to any one. I never attested any such document. And I
have the document itself, in my possession.' "

Uriah Heep, with a start, took oivt of his pocket a bunch

758 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of keys, and opened a cercain drawer; then, suddenly bt
thought himself of what he was about, and turned again
towards us, without looking in it.

" ' And I have the document, ' " Mr. Micawber read again,
looking about as if it were the text of a sermon, " ' in my
possession,' — that is to say, I had, early this morning,
when this was written, but have since relinquished it to
Mr. Traddles."

" It is quite true," assented Traddles.

" Ury, Ury ! " cried the mother, " be umble and make
terms. I know my son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll
give him time to think. Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure you
know that he was always very umble, Sir ! "

It was singular to see how the mother still held to the
old trick, when the son had abandoned it as useless.

"Mother," he said, with an impatient bite at the hand-
kerchief in which his hand was wrapped, " you had better
take and fire a loaded gun at me."

"But I love you, Ury," cried Mrs. Heep. And I have
no doubt she did ; or that he loved her, however strange it
may appear; though, to be sure, they were a congenial
couple. " And I can't bear to hear you provoking the
gentleman, and endangering of yourself more. I told the
gentleman at first, when he told me up-stairs it was come
to light, that I would answer for your being umble, and
making amends. Oh, see how umble I am, gentlemen, and
don't mind him ! "

"Why, there's Copperfield, mother," he angrily retorted,
pointing his lean finger at me, against whom all his ani-
mosity was levelled, as the prime mover in the discovery:
and I did not undeceive him; "there's Copperfield, would
have given you a hundred pound to say less than you've
blurted out ! "

" I can't help it, Ury," cried his mother. " I can't see you
running into danger, through carrying your head so high
Better be umble, as you always was."

He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief and
then said to me with a scowl :

" What more have you got to bring forward? If any-
thing, go on with it. What do you look at me for? "

Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, only too glad
to revert to a performance with which he was so highly
satisfied.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 759

tc Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show,
by — Heep's — false books, and — Heep's — real memoranda,
beginning with the partially destroyed pocket-book (which
I was unable to comprehend, at the time of its accidental
discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our taking possession of
our present abode, in the locker or bin devoted to the re-
ception of the ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that
the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the parental
affections, and the sense of honour, of the unhappy Mr. W.
have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base
purposes of — Heep, That Mr. W. has been for years de-
luded and plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the
pecuniary aggrandisement of the -avaricious, false, and
grasping — Heep. That the engrossing object of — Heep —
was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his
ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) en-
tirely to himself. That his last act, completed but a few
months since, was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relinquish-
ment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill of sale
on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a
certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by — Heep — on the
four common quarter-days in each and every year. That
these meshes; beginning with alarming and falsified ac-
counts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver, at a
period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-
judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for
which he was morally and legally responsible, in hand;
going on with pretended borrowings of money at enormous
interest, really coming from — Heep — and by — Heep —
fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself,
on pretence of such speculations or otherwise ; perpetuated
by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries—
gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see
no world beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in cir-
cumstances, in all other hope, and in honour, his sole reli-
ance was upon the monster in the garb of man,' " — Mr.
Micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn of ex-
pression,— " ' who, by making himself necessary to him,
had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show.
Probably much more ' ' "

I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping,
half joyfully, half sorrowfully, at my side; and there was
a movement strong us. as if Mr Micawber had finished.

760 PERSOx^AL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

He said, with exceeding gravity, "Pardon me," and pro
ceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most
intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter.

" ' I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to
substantiate these accusations ; and then, with my ill-starred
family, to disappear from the landscape on which we appear
to be an incumbrance. That is soon done. It may be
reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inani-
tion, as being the frailest member of our circle ; and that
our twins will follow next in order. So be it ! For my-
self, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much ; imprison-
ment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I
trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation — of
which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together,
in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penu-
rious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the
shadows of night- 'inder the watchful eye of one whom it
»vere superfluous to call Demon — combined with the strug-
gle of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the
right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of
sweet water on my funereal pyre. I ask no more. Let it
be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and em-
inent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope,
that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and
selfish objects,

"For England, home, and beauty."

"' Remaining always, &c, &c, Wilkins Micawber.' 5J

Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr.
Micawber folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to
my aunt, as something she might like to keep.

There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago,
an iron safe in the room. The key was in it. A hasty
suspicion seemed to strike Uriah ; and, with a glance at
Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors ciankiug
open It was empty.

"Where are the books? " he cried, with a frightful face.
" Some thief has stolen the books ! "

Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. " / did,
when I got the key from you as usual— but a little earlier
— and opened it this morning."

"Don't be uneasy," said ~T raddles. "They have come

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 761

intc my possession. I will take care of them under the
authority I mentioned."

" You receive stolen goods, do you? " cried Uriah.

"Under such circumstances," answered Traddles, "yes."

What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who
had been profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at
Uriah Heep, and seize him by the collar with both hands !

" You know what /want ? " said my aunt.

"A strait- waistcoat," said he.

"No. My property! " returned my aunt. " Agnes^ urv
dear, as long as I believed it had been really made away
with by your father, I wouldn't — and, my dear, I didn't,
even to Trot, as he knows — breathe a syllable of its having
been placed here for investment. But, now I know this
fellow's answerable for it, and I'll have it! Trot, come
and take it away from him ! "

Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he
kept her property in his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don't
know ; but she certainly pulled at it as if she thought so.
I hastened to put myself between them, and to assure her
that we would all take care that he should make the utmost
restitution of everything he had wrongly got. This, and a
few moments' reflection, pacified her ; but she was not at
all disconcerted by what she had done (though I cannot
say as much for her bonnet), and resumed her seat com-
posedly.

During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clam-
ouring to her son to be " umble ; " and had been going down
on her knees to all of us in succession, and making the
wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his chair; and,
standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand,
but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look :

"What do you want done? "

"I will tell you what must be done," said Traddles.

"Has that Copperfield no tongue?" muttered Uriah
" I would do a good deal for you if you could tell me, with-
out lying, that somebody had cut it out."

" My Uriah means to be umble ! " cried his mother.
"Don't mind what he says, good gentlemen! "

''What must be done," said Traddles, "is this. First,
the deed of relinquishment, that we have heard of, must
be given over to me now — here."

" Suppose I haven't got it," he interrupted

762 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"But you have," said Traddles ; "therefore, you know,
we won't suppose so." And I cannot help avowing that
this was the first occasion on which I really did justice to
the clear head, and the plain, patient, practical good sense,
of my old schoolfellow. "Then," said Traddles^ "you
must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become
possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing.
All the partnership books and papers must remain in our
possession ; all your books and papers ; all money accounts
and securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here."

"Must it? I don't know that," said Uriah. "I must
have time to think about that."

"Certainly," replied Traddles; "but, in the meanwhile,
and until everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall
maintain possession of these things ; and beg you — in short,
compel you— to keep your own room, and hold no communi-
oation with any one."

" I won't do it! " said Uriah, with an oath.

"Maidstone Jail is a safer place of detention," observed
Traddles ; " and though the law may be longer in righting
us, and may not be able to right us so completely as you
can, there is no doubt of its punishing you. Dear me, you
know that quite as well as I! Copperfield, will you go
round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers? "

Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees
to Agnes to interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he
was very humble, and it was all true, and if he didn't do
what we wanted, she would, and much more to the same
purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling. To
inquire what he might have done, if he had had any bold-
ness, would be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do,
if it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from head
to foot ; and showed his dastardly nature through his sul-
lenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his
mean life.

" Stop ! " he growled to me ; and wiped his hot face with
his hand. "Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let 'em
have that deed. Go and fetch it ! "

"Do you help her, Mr. Dick," said Traddles, "if you
please."

Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick
accompanied her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a
idieep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him little trouble; for she

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 763

not only returned with the deed, but with the dok iu which
it was, where we found a banker's book and some other
papers that were afterwards serviceable.

" Good ! " said Traddles, when this was brought. " Now,
Mr. Heep, you can retire to think : particularly observing,
if you please, that I declare to you, on the part of all pres-
ent, that there is only one thing to be done; that it is
what I have explained; and that it must be done without
delay."

Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled
across the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at
the door, said:

" Copperfield, I have always hated you. You've always
been an upstart, and you've always been against me."

" As I think I told you once before, " said I, " it is you
who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the
world. Lb may be profitable to you to reflect, in future,
that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet,
that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is
as certain as death."

" Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same
school where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine
o'clock to eleven, that labour was a curse ; and from eleven
o'clock to one, that it was a blessing and a cheerfulness,
and a dignity, and I don't know what all, eh? " said he
with a sneer. " You preach, about as consistent as they
did. Won't umbleness go down? I shouldn't have got
round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think. —
Micawber, you old bully, I'll pay you ! "

Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended
finger, and making a great deal of his chest until he had
slunk out at the door, then addressed himself to me, and
proffered me the satisfaction of " witnessing the re-estab-
lishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs
Micawber. " After which, he invited the company generally
to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle.

"The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs.
Micawber and myself, is now withdrawn," said Mr. Micaw-
ber ; u and my children and the Author of their Being can
once more come in contact on equal terms."

As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to
show that we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of
our spirits would permit, I dare say we should all have

764 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to return to her
father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope ;
and for some one else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So,
Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be presently
relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went
home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the
dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from what
she had been saved, perhaps, that morning — her bettei
resolution notwithstanding — I felt devoutly thankful for
the miseries of my younger days which had brought me to
the knowledge of Mr. Micawber.

His house was not far off ; and as the street-door opened
into the sitting-room, and he- bolted in with a precipita-
tion quite his own, we found ourselves at once in the bosom
of the family. Mr. Micawber exclaiming, "Emma! my
life! " rushed into Mrs. Micawber' s arms. Mrs. Micawber
shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss
Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micaw-
ber's last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger
leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconve-
nient but innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber,
whose disposition appeared to have been soured by early
disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose,
yielded to his better feelings, and blubbered.

" Emma ! " said Mr. Micawber. " The cloud is past
from my mind. Mutual confidence, so long preserved
between us once, is restored, to know no farther interruption.
Now, welcome poverty ! " cried Mr. Micawber, shedding
tears. " Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome
hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence
will sustain us to the end ! "

With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs.
Micawber in a chair, and embraced the family all round;
welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which appeared,
to the best of my judgment, to be anything but welcome to
them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury
and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support.

But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emo-
tions, fainted away, the first thing to be done, even before
the chorus could be considered complete, was to recover her.
This, my aunt and Mr. Micawber did ; and then my aunt
tfas introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognised me.

"Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield," said the poor lady,

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 765

giving me her hand, "but I am not strong; and the removal
of the late misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and
myself was at first too much for me."

"Is this all your family, ma'am? " said my aunt.

"There are no more at present," returned Mrs. Micawber.

"Good gracious, I didn't mean that, ma'am," said my
aunt. "I mean, are all these yours? "

"Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is a true bill."

"And that eldest young gentleman, now," said my aunt,
musing. " What has he been brought up to? "

"It was my hope when I came here," said Mr. Micawbei,
" to have got Wilkins into the Church : or perhaps I shall
express my meaning more strictly, if I say the Choir. But
there was no vacancy for a tenor in the venerable Pile for
which this city is so justly eminent ; and he has— in short,
he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather
than in sacred edifices."

"But he means well," said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly.

"I dare say, my love," rejoined Mr. Micawber, "that he
means particularly well; but I have not yet found that he
carries out his meaning, in any given direction whatso-
ever. "

Master Micawber' s moroseness of aspect returned upon
him again, and he demanded, with some temper, what he
was to do? Whether he had been born a carpenter, or a
coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird?
Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chem-
ist's shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and
proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by
force at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he
could do anything, without being brought up to something?

My aunt mused a little while, and then said :

" Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your
thoughts to emigration."

"Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "it was the dream of
my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years."
I am thoroughly persuaded, by the bye, that he had never
thought of it in his life.

"Ay?" said my aunt, with a glance at me. "Why,
what a thing it would be for yourselves and your family.
Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to emigrate now."

"Capital, madam, capital," urged Mr. Micawber, gloom
ily.

766 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my
dear Mr. Copperfield," assented his wife.

"Capital?" cried my aunt. "But you are doing as a
great service — have done us a great service, I may say, for
surely much will come out of the fire — and what could
we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the
capital? "

"I could not receive it as a gift," said Mr. Micawber,
full of fire and animation, " but if a sufficient sum could be
advanced, say at five per cent, interest, per annum, upon
my personal liability — say my notes of hand, at twelve,
eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow
time for something to turn up-^ "

"Could be? Can be, and shall be, on your own terms,"
returned my aunt, " if you say the word. Think of this
now, both of you. Here are some people David knows,
going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why
shouldn't you go in the same ship? You may help each
other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take
your time, and weigh it well."

"There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish
to ask," said Mrs. Micawber. "The climate, I believe, is
healthy."

" Finest in the world ! " said my aunt.

" Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. " Then my ques-
tion arises. Now, are the circumstances of the country
such, that a man of Mr. Micawber' s abilities would have a
fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will not say, at
present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of
that sort ; but would there be a reasonable opening for his
talents to develop themselves — that would be amply suffi-
cient— and find their own expansion? "

"No better opening anywhere/' said my aunt, "for a
man who conducts himself well, and is industrious."

"For a man who conducts himself well," repeated Mrs.
Micawber, with her clearest business manner, " and is in-
dustrious. Precisely. It is evident to me that Australia
is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. Micawber ! "

"I entertain the conviction, my dear madam," said Mr.
Micawber, "that it is, under existing circumstances, the
land, the only land, for myself and family ; and that some-
thing of an extraordinary nature will turn up on that shore.
it is no distance — comparatively speaking; and thougb

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 767

consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I
assure you that is a mere matter of form."

Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most
sanguine of men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs.
Micawber presently discoursed about the habits of the kan-
garoo! Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a
market-day, without recalling him, as he walked back with
us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed,
the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land;
and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye
of an Australian farmer!

CHAPTER LIU.

ANOTHER RETROSPECT.

I must pause yet once again. Oh, my child-wife, there
is a figure m the moving crowd before my memory, quiet
and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty,
Stop to think of me— turn to look upon the Little Blossom,
\s it flutters to the ground!

I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again
arith Dora, in our cottage. I do not know how long she
Jias been ill. I am so used to it in feeling, that I cannot
gount the time. It is not really long, in weeks or months ;
but, m my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while.
They have left off telling me to "wait a few days more."
I have begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never
'.nine, when I shall see my child- wife running in the sun-
right with her old friend Jip.

He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be,
that he misses in his mistress, something that enlivened
him and made him younger; but he mopes, and his sight is
weak^ and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that
he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on
Dora's bed— she sitting at the bedside— and mildly licks
her baud. J

Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no
hasty or complaining word. She says that we are very
good to ner ; that her dear old careful boy is tiring himself
out, she knows ; that my aunt has no sleep, yet is always

768 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the little bird-like
ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our wedding-
day, and all that happy time.

What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to
be — and in all life, within doors and without — when I sit
in -the quiet, shaded, orderly room, with the blue eyes of my
child- wife turned towards me, and her little fingers twining
round my hand ! Many and many an hour 1 sit thus ; but,
of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind.

It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's
hands, shows me how her pretty hair will curl upon the
pillow yet, and how long and bright it is, and how she likes
to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears.

"Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy," she
says, when I smile; "but because you used to say you
thought it so beautiful ; and because, when I first began to
think about you, I used to peep in the glass, and wondei
whether you would like very much to have a lock of it.
Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave
you one ! "

" That was on the day when you were painting the flowers
I had given you, Dora, and when I told you how much in
love I was.'"

"Ah! but I didn't like to tell you" says Dora, "then,
how I had cried over them, because I believed you really
liked me ! When I can run about again as I used to do,
Doady, let us go and see those places where we were such
a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old walks?
And not forget poor papa? "

" Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must
make haste to get well, my dear."

"Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you
don't know ! "

It is evening ; and I sit in the same chair, by the same
bed, with the same face turned towards me. We have been
silent, and there is a smile upon her face. I have ceased
to carry my light burden up and down stairs now. She
lies here all the day.

"Doady!"

" My dear Dora ! "
You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 769

after -what you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr,
Wickfield's not being well? I want to see Agnes. Very
much I want to see her. "

"I will write to her, my dear."

" Will you? "

-Directly."

" What a good, kmd boy ! Doady, take me on your arm.
Indeed, my dear, it's not a whim. It's not a foolish fancy.
I want, very much indeed, to see her ! "

" I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she
is sure to come."

"You are very lonely when you go down stairs, now? "
.Dora whispers, with her arm about my neck.

"How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your
empty chair? "

" My empty chair ! " She clings to me for a little while,
in silence. " And you really miss me, Doady? " looking
up, and brightly smiling. " Even poor, giddy, stupid me? "

" My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss scr
much?"

" Oh, husband ! I am so glad, yet so sorry ! " creeping
closer to me, and folding me in both her arms. She laughs
and sobs, and then is quiet, and quite happy.

"Quite!" she says. "Only give Agnes my dear love,
and tell her that I want very, very much to see her ; and I
have nothing left to wish for."

"Except to get well again, Dora."

"Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think — you know I always
was a silly little thing!— that that will never be! "

" Don't, say so, Dora! Dearest love, don't think so ! "

" I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy ;
though my dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his
child-wife's empty chair! "

It is night ; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived ;
nas been among us, for a whole day and an evening^ She,
my aunt, and I, have sat with Dora since the morning, all
together. We have not talked much, but Dora has been
perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now alone.

Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me?

They have told me so ; they have told me nothing new to

my thoughts ; but I am far from sure that I have taken

that truth to heart, I cannot master it. I have withdrawn

49

770 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

by myself, many times to-day, to weep , I have remembered
Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead.
I have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate
history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console my-
self ; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly ; but
what I cannot firmly settle in my inind is, that the end will
absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart
in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I
cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she
will be spared.

" I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say
something I have often thought of saying, lately. You
won't mind? " with a gentle look.

"Mind, my darling?"

" Because I don't know what you will think, or what you
may have thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often
thought the same. Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too
young."

I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into
my eyes, and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes
on, I feel, with a stricken heart, that she is speaking of
herself as past.

"I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in
years only, but inexperience, and thoughts, and everything.
I was such a silly little creature ! I am afraid it would
have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy
and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not
fit to be a wife."

I try to stay my tears, and to reply, " Oh, Dora, love, as
fit as I to be a husband ! "

" I don't know," with the old shake of her curls. "Per-
haps! But, if I had been more fit to be married, I might
have made you more so, too. Besides, you are very clever,
and I never was. "

"We have been very happy, my sweet Dora."

"I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my
dear boy would have wearied of his child- wife. She would
have been less and less a companion for him. He would
have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in
his home. She wouldn't have improved It is better as
it is."

"Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so
Every word seems a reproach ! "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 771

•'No, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. "Oh,
my dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too
well, to say a reproachful word to you, in earnest — it was
all the merit I had, except being pretty — or you thought
me so. Is it lonely, down stairs, Doady? "

" Very ! Very ! "

" Don't cry ! Is my chair there? "

" In its old plact

" Oh, how my po< w boy cries ! Hush, hush ! Now, make
me one promise. I want to speak to Agnes. When you
go down stairs, tell Agnes so, and send her up to me; and
while I speak to her, let no one come — not even aunt. I
want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to
Agnes, quite alone."

I promise that she shall, immediately ; but I cannot leave
her, for my grief.

" I said that it was better as it is ! " she whispers, as she
holds me in her arms. " Oh, Doady, after more years, you
never could have loved your child-wife better than you do ;
and, after more years, she would so have tried and disap-
pointed you, that you might not have been able to love her
half so well ! I know I was too young and foolish. It is
much better as it is ! "

Agnes is down stairs, when 1 go into the parlour; and I
give her the message She disappears, leaving me alone
with Jip.

His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it,
on his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The
bright moon is high and clear. As I look out on the night,
my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened
iieavily — heavily.

I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of
all those secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage.
I think of every little trifle between me and Dora5 and feel
the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising
from the sea oi my remembrance, is the image of the dear
child as I knew her first, graced by my young love, and by
her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich.
Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each
other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined
heart, reply !

How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by

772 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

my child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was.
he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders
to the door, and whines to go up-stairs.

" Not to-night, Jip ! Not to-night ! "

He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and
lifts his dim eyes to my face.

" Oh, Jip ! It may be, never again ! "

He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to
sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead.

" Oh, Agnes ! Look, look, here ! n

— That face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of
tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand up-
raised towards Heaven !

"Agnes?"

It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes ; and, for a
tune, all things are blotted out of my remembrance

CHAPTER LIV

MR. MICAWBER'S TRANSACTIONS.

This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state
of my mind beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think
that the Future was walled up before me, that the energy
and action of my life were at an end, that I never could
find any refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I say,
but not in the first shock of my grief. It slowly grew to
that. If the events I go on to relate, had not thickened
around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to
augment, my affliction, it is possible (though I think not
probable), that I might have fallen at once into this con-
dition. As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew
my own distress; an interval, in which I even supposed
that its sharpest pangs were past; and when my mind could
soothe itself by resting on all that was most innocent and
beautiful, in the tender story that was closed for ever.

When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or
how it came to be agreed among us that I was to seek the
restoration of my peace in change and travel, I do not, even
now, distinctly know. The spirit of Agnes so pervaded
all we thought, and said, and did. in that time of sorrow,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 773

wiat 1 assume I may refer the project to her influence. But
her influence was so quiet that I know no more.

And now, indeed, I "began to think that in my old asso-
ciation of her with the stained-glass windgw in the church,
a prophetic foreshadowing of what she would be to me, in
the calamity that was to happen in the fulness of time,
had found a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from
the moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before
me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence
in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted
there, my child-wife fell asleep — they told me so when .1
could bear to hear it — oil her bosom, with a smile From
my swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compas-
sionate tears, her words of hope and peace, her gentle face
bending down as from a purer region nearer Heaven, over
my undisciplined heart, and softening its pain

Let me go on.

I was to go abroad. That seemed to nave been deter-
mined among us from the first. The ground now covering
all that could perish of my departed wife, I waited only for
what Mr. Micawber called the " final pulverisation of Heep,"
and for the departure of the emigrants.

At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted
of friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: 1
mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appoint-
ment straight to Mr. Micawber's house; where, and at Mr,
Wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our
explosive meeting. "When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me
come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly affected.
There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart,
which had not been dunned, out of it in all those many years.

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,'3 was my aunt's first
salutation after we were seated. " Pray, have you thought
about that emigration proposal of mine? "

"My dear madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "perhaps I
cannot better express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micaw-
ber, your humble servant, and I may add our children, have
jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing the language
of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the shore,
and our Bark is on the sea."

"That's right," said my aunt, "I augur ail sorts oi
good from your sensible decision."

"Madam, you do us a great deal of honour," he rejoined

774 PERSONAL HISTORY AKD EXPERIENCE

He then referred to a memorandum. " With respect to the
pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe
on the ocean of enterprise, I have reconsidered that impor-
tant business point ; and would beg to propose my notes of
hand — drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the
amounts respectively required by the various Acta of Par-
liament applying to such securities — at eighteen, twenty-
four, and thirty months, The proposition I originally
submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I
am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow
sufficient time for the requisite amount of — Something — to
turn up. We might not," said Mr. Micawber, looking
round the room as if it represented several hundred acres
of highly-cultivated land, " on the first responsibility be-
coming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we
might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is
sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial
possessions where it will be our lot to combat with, the
teeming soil."

" Arrange it in any way you please, Sir," said my aunt.

"Madam," he replied, "Mrs. Micawber and myself are
deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our
friends and patrons. What I wish is, to be perfectly busi-
ness-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, as we are
about to turn over, an entirely new leaf ; and falling back,
as we are now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no
common magnitude ; it is important to my sense of self-
respect, besides being an example to my son, that these
arrangements should be concluded as between man and man. "

I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning
to this last phrase ; I don't know that anybody ever does,
or did; but he appeared to relish n uncommonly, and re-
peated, with an impressive cough, "as between man and
man."

"I propose," said Mr. Micawber, "Bills — a convenience
to the mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are origi-
nally indebted to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a
devilish deal too much to do with them ever since— because
they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other descrip-
tion of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to
execute any such instrument. As between man and man.'*

My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were
willing to agree to anything, she took it for granted there

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 77£

would be no difficulty in settling this point. Mr. Micc*.'vber
was of her opinion.

u In reference to our domestic preparations, madam," said
!Mi Micawber, with some pride, '■ for meeting the destiny
to which we are now understood to be self-devoted, I beg to
report them. My eldest daughter attends at five every
morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire the
process — if process it may be called — of milking cows. My
younger children are instructed to observe, as closely as
circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry
maintained in the poorer parts of this city : a pursuit from
which they have, on two occasions, been brought home,
witain an inch of being run over. I have myself directed
some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking;
and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick
and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings
who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in
that direction — which I regret to say, for the credit of our
nature, was not often: he being generally warned, with
imprecations, to desist."

"All very right, indeed," said my aunt, encouragingly
"Mrs. Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt."

11 My dear madam," returned Mrs. Micawber, with her
business-like air, " I am free to confess, that I have not
been actively engaged in pursuits immediately connected
with cultivation or with stock, though well aware that both
will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such oppor-
tunities as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic
duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length with
my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr. Cop-
perHeld," said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me,
I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might
address her discourse at starting, " that the time is come
when the past should be buried in oblivion ; when my family
should take Mr, Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber
should take my family by the hand ; when the lion should
lie down with the lamb and my family be on terms with
Mr. Micawber."

I said I thought so too.

"This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Oopperneld,"
pursued Mrs. Micawber, "in which 1 view the subject.
When I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa
was accustomed to ask, when any point was under discus-

^76 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

sioii in our limited circle, ' In what light does my Emma
view the subject? ' That my papa was too partial, I know ;
still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever
subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I neces-
sarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be."

"No doubt. Of course you have, ma'am," said my aunt.

"Precisely so," assented Mrs. Micawber. "Now, I may
be vvrong in my conclusions ; it is very likely that I am ;
but my individual impression is, that the gulf between my
family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an apprehension ,
on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require
pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking," said
Mrs. Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, "that there
are members of my family who have been apprehensive that
Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their names. — I do
not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children, but
to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the
Money Market. "

The look of penetration with which Mrs, Micawber an-
nounced this discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it
before, seemed rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly
replied, " Well, ma'am, upon the whole, I shouldn't wonder
if you were right ! "

" Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the
pecuniary shackles that have so long enthralled him," said
Mrs. Micawber, " and of commencing a new career in a
country where there is sufficient range for his abilities, —
which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important ; Mr. Micaw-
ber's abilities peculiarly requiring space, — it seems to me
that my family should sign aiise the occasion by coming for-
ward. What I could wish to see, would be a meeting between
Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive entertainment, to
be given at my family's expense; where Mr. Micawber' s
health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading mem-
ber of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity
of developing his views."

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, "it may
be better for me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were
to develop my views to that assembled group, they would
possibly be found of an offensive nature : my impression
being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent
Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians."

"Micawber." said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head,

OF DAVID COPFERFIELD. 777

-*no! You have never understood them, and they have
never understood you."
Mr. Micawber coughed.

"They have never understood you, Micawber," said his
wife. "They may be incapable of it. If so, that is their
misfortune. . I can pity their misfortune."

" I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, relenting, "to have been betrayed into any expressions
that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being
strong expressions. AH; I would say, is, that I can go
abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,
—in short, with" a parting Shove of their cold shoulders;
and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave England
with such impetus as I possess, than derive any acceleration
of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, if
they should condescend to reply to your communications—
which our joint experience renders most improbable— far
be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes."

The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber'
gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, and glancing at the heap of
books and papers lying before Traddles on the table, said
they would leave us to uurselves ; which they ceremoniously
did.

" My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, leaning back in
his chair when they were gone, and looking at me with an
affection that made his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of
shapes, " I don't make any excuse for troubling you with
business, because I know you are deeply interested in it,
and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope
you are not worn out? "

"I am quite myself," said I, after a pause. "We have
more cause to think of my aunt than of anyone. You know
how much she has done."

* Surely, surely," answered Traddles. "Who can for-
get it! » t ,

"But even that is not all," said I. "During the last
fortnight, some new trouble has vexed her; and she has
been in and out of London every day. Several times she
has gone out early, and been absent until evening. Last
night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost
nifdnight before she came home. " You know what her con-
sideration for other- is. She will not tell me what has
happened to distress her "

778 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat
immovable until I had finished; when some stray tears
found their way to her cheeks, and she put her hand on
mine,

"It's nothing, Trot; it's nothing. There will be no
more of it. You shall knowby-and-by. Now, Agnes, my
dear, let us attend to these affairs."

"I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say," Traddles
began, " that although he would appear not to have worked
to any good account for himself, he is a most untiring man
when he works for other people. I never saw such a fellow.
If he always goes on in the same way, he must be, virtu-
ally, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat
into which he has been continually putting himself; and
the distracted and impetuous manner in which ne has been
diving, day and night, among papers and books; to say
nothing of the immense number of letters he has written
me between this house and Mr. Wickfield's, and often across
the table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much
more easily have spoken ; is quite extraordinary. "

" Letters ! " cried my aunt. " I believe he dreams in
letters ! "

" There's Mr. Dick, too," said Traddles, "has been doing
wonders! As soon as he was released from overlooking
Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such charge as /never saw
exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr. Wiekfield.
And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we
have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting,
and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been quite
stimulating to us."

"Dick is a very remarkable man," exclaimed my aunt;
" and I always said he was. Trot, you know it! "

" I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield," pursued Traddles,
at once with great delicacy and with great earnestness, "that
in your absence Mr. Wickfield has considerably improved.
Relieved of the incubus that had fastened upon him fcr so
long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under which
he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, even
his impaired power of concentrating his memory and atten-
tion on particular points of business, has recovered itself
very much ; and ha has been able to assist us in making
some things clear, that we should have found very difficult
indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But, what I have

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 779

to do is to come to results ; which are short enough ; net to
gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observe*1, or
I shall never have done."

His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it
transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and
to enable Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater
confidence ; but it was not the less pleasant for that.

"Now, let me see," said Traddles, looking among the
papers on the table. "Having counted our funds, and re-
duced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in
the first place, and of wilful confusion and falsification in
the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might
now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit
no deficiency or defalcation whatever."

" Oh, thank Heaven ! " cried Agnes, fervently.

" But," said Traddles, "the surplus that would be left as
his means of support — and I suppose the house to be sold,
even in saying this — would be so small, not exceeding in
all probability some hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, Miss
Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he might
not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long
been receiver. His friends might advise him, you know ;
now he is free. You yourself, Miss Wickfield — Copper-
field— I "

"I have considered it, Trotwood," said Agnes, looking
to me, "and I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be ;
even on the recommendation of a friend to whom I am so
grateful, and owe so much."

"I will not say that I recommend it," observed Trad-
dles. " I think it right to suggest it. No more."

" I am happy to hear you say so," answered Agnes, stead-
ily, " for it gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think
alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and dear Trotwood, papa once
free with honour, what could I wish for ! I have always
aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which
be waa held, to render back some little portion of the love
and care*I owe him, and to devote my life to him. It has
been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. To take
our future on myself, will be the next great happiness— the
next to his release from all trust and responsibility — that I
can know."

"Have vo"1. thought how, Agnes? "

* Often I I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain

780 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

of success. So many people know me here, and think
kindly of me. that I am certain. Don't mistrust me. Our
wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and
keep a school, I shall be useful and happy. "

The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so
vividly, first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary
home, that my heart was too full for speech. Traddles
pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the
papers.

"Xext, Miss Trotwood," said Traddles, "that property
of yours. "

"Well, Sir," sighed my aunt. "All I have got to say
about it, is, that if it's gone, I can bear it; and if it's not
gone, I shall be glad to get it back."

" It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Con-
sols? " said Traddles.

" Right ! " replied my aunt.

u I can't account for more than five," said Traddles, with
an air of perplexity.

" — Thousand, do you mean? " inquired my aunt, with
uncommon composure, "or pounds? "

"Five thousand pounds," said Traddles.

"It was all there was," returned my aunt. "I sold
three, myself. One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my
dear; and the other two I have by me. When I lost the
rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum,
but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see
how you would come out of the trial, Trot; and you came
out nobly — persevering, self-reliant, self-denying ! So did
Dick. Don't speak to me, for I find my nerves a little
shaken ! "

Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting up
right, with her arms folded; but she had wonderful self-
command.

"Then I am delighted to say," cried Traddles, beaming
with joy, "that we have recovered the whole money! "

" Don't congratulate me, anybody! " exclaimed my aunt.
" How so, Sir? "

"You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wick-
field? " said Traddles.

" Of course I did, " said my aunt, " and was therefore
sasily silenced. Agnes, not a word ! "

"And indeed," said Traddles, "it was sold, by virtue of

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 781

the power of management lie held from you; but I needn't
say by whom sold, or on whose actual signature. It was
afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that rascal, —
and proved, too, by figures, — that he had possessed him-
self of the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep
other deficiencies and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wick-
field, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay
you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended
principal which he knew did not exist, made himself,
unhappily, a party to the fraud. "

" And at last took the blame upon himself," added my
aunt ; " and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with
robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon which I paid him
a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt the
letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself,
to do it; and if he couldn't, to keep his own counsel for
his daughter's sake. — If anybody speaks to me, I'll leave
the house ! "

We all remained quiet ; Agnes covering her face.

"Well, my dear friend," said my aunt, after a pause,
" and you have really extorted the money back from
him?"

"Why, the fact is," returned Traddles, "Mr. Micawber
had so completely hemmed him in, and was always ready
with so many new points if an old one failed, that he could
not escape from us. A most remarkable circumstance is,
that I really don't think he grasped this sum even so much
for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate,
as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me,
plainly. He said he would even have spent as much, to
baulk or injure Copperfield."

" Ha ! " said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully ?
and glancing at Agnes. " And what's become of him? "

" I don't know. He left here," said Traddles, " with his
mother, who had been clamouring, and beseeching, and dis-
closing, the whole time. They went away by one of the
London night coaches, and I know no more about him;
except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious.
He seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me,
than to Mr. Micawber; which I consider (as I told him)
quite a compliment."

" Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles? " I asked.

"Oh dear, yes, I should think so," he replied, shaking

782 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Ms head, seriously. " I should say he must have pocketed
■a good deal, in one way or other. But, I think you would
find, Copperfield, if you had an opportunity of observing
jhis course, that money would never keep that man out o*
mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever
object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his only
compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon him-
self. Always creeping along the ground to some small end
or other, he will always magnify every object in the way :
and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that
.conies, in the most innocent manner, between him and it.
So, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any
moment, for the least reason, or for none. It's only neces-
sary to consider his history here," said Traddles, "to know
that."

"He's a monster of meanness! " said my aunt.

"Really I don't know about that," observed Traddles,
thoughtfully. "Many people can be very mean, when
they give their minds to it."

" And now, touching Mr. Micawber," said my aunt.

"Well* really," said Traddles, cheerfully, "I must, once
more, give Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having
been so patient and persevering for so long a time, we
never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of.
And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did
right, for right's sake, when we reflect what terms he
might have made with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence."

" I think so too, " said I.

"Now, what would you give him? " inquired my aunt.

"Oh! Before you come to that," said Traddles, a little
disconcerted, "I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit
(not being able to carry everything before me) two points,
in making this lawless adjustment— for it's perfectly law-
less from beginning to end — of a difficult affair. Those
I 0 U\s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for
the advances he had "

" Well! They must be paid," said my aunt.

" Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded
•on, or where they are," rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes;
" and I anticipate, that, between this time and his depart-
ure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly arrested, or taken in
execution."

Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. "83

out of execution," said my aunt. " What's the amount alto-
gether0 B

" Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions — he
calls them transactions —with great form, in a book/' re-
joined Traddles, smiling ; " and he makes the amount a hun-
dred and three pounds, five."

" NoW, what shall we give him, that sum included? " said
my aunt. "Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about
division of it afterwards. What should it be? Five hun-
dred pounds? "

Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We
both recommended a small sum in money, and the payment,
without stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims
as they came in. We proposed that the family should
have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds ;
and that Mr. Micawber' s arrangement for the repayment of
the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be
wholesome for him to suppose himself unaer that responsi-
bility. To this, I added the suggestion, that I should give
some explanation of his character and history to Mr. Peg-
gotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr. Peg-
gotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advanc-
ing another hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr.
Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by confiding so much of Mr.
Peggotty's story to him as I might feel justified in relating,
or might think expedient ; and to endeavour to bring each
of them to bear upon the other, for tne common advantage.
We all entered warmly into these news ; and I may men-
tion at once, that the principals themselves did so, shortly
afterwards, with perfect good-wili and harmony.

Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt
again, I reminded him of the second and last point to
which he had adverted.

" You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I
touch upon a painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,"
said Traddles, hesitating ; " but 1 think it necessary to bring
it to your recollection. On the day of Mr. Micawber' s
memorable denunciation, a threatening allusion was made
by Uriah Heep to your aunt's — husband."

My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent com-
posure, assented with a nod.

"Perhaps," observed Traddles, "it was mere purposeless
impertinence? "

784 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"No," returned my aunt.

"There was — pardon me — really such a person, and at
all in his power? " hinted Traddles.

" Yes, my good friend," said my aunt.

Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face,
explained that he had not been able to approach this sub-
ject; that it had shared the fate of Mr. Micawber's liabili-
ties, in not being comprehended in the terms he had made ;
that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep ;
and that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or
annoyance, no doubt he would.

My aunt remained quiet ; until again some stray tears
found their way to her cheeks.

" You are quite right," she said. " It was very thought-
ful to mention it."

" Can I — or Copperfield— do anything? " asked Traddles
gently,

"Nothing," said my aunt. "I thank you many times.
Trot, my dear, a vain threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber back. And don't any of you speak to me!"
With that, she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her
upright carriage, looking at the door.

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!" said my aunt, when
they entered. " We have been discussing your emigration,
with many apologies to you for keeping you out of the room
so long; and I'll tell you what arrangements we propose."

These she explained, to the unbounded satisfaction of the
family,— children and all being then present, — and so much
to the awakening of Mr. Micawber's punctual habits in the
opening stage of all bill transactions, that he could not be
dissuaded from immediately rushing out, in the highest
spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of hand. But, his
joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes, he
returned in the custody of a sheriff's officer, informing us,
in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite pre-
j>ared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of
Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes
more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table, filling up the
stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only that
congenial employment, or the making of punch, could
irapart in full completeness to his shining face . To see him
at work on the stamps, with the relish of an artist, touch-
ing them like pictures, looking at them sideways, taking

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 785

weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and
contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of
their precious value, was a sight indeed.

•• Now, the best thing you can do, Sir, if you'll allow me
to advise you," said my aunt, after silently ^observing him,
"is to abjure that occupation for evermore."

-Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is my intention
to register such a vow on the virgin page of the future.
Mrs. Micawber will attest it. I trust," said Mr. Micawber,
solemnly, " that my son Wilkins will ever bear in mind,
that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than
use it to handle the serpeuts that have poisoned the life-
blood of his unhappy parent!" Deeply affected, and
changed in a moment to the image of despair, Mr. Micaw-
ber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence
(iii which his late admiration of them was not quite sub-
dued), folded them up, and put them in his pocket.

This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were .
weary with sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to
return to London on the morrow. It was arranged that the
Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a sale of then-
goods to a broker ; that Mr. Wickfield's affairs should be
brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under
the direction of Traddles ; and that Agnes should also come
to London, pending those arrangements. We passed the
night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of
the Heeps, seemed purged of a disease ; and I lay in my old
room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home.

We went back next day to my aunt's house— not to mine ;
and when she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to
bed, she said :

" Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon
my mind lately? "

" Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I
felt unwilling that you should have a sorrow or anxiety
which I could not share, it is now."

"You have had sorrow enough, child," said my aunt,
affectionately, "without the addition of my little miseries
I could hare no other motive, Trot, in keeping anything
from you."

" I Vnow that well," said I. " But tell me now.
' Would you ride with me a little way to-morrow morn-
ing ? " asked my aunt.
50

786 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Of course."

" At nine," said she. " I'll tell you then, my dear."

At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and .
drove to London. We drove a long way through the streets,
until we came to one of the large hospitals. Standing hard
by the building was a plain hearse. The driver recognised
my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand at the
window, drove slowly off; we following.

" You understand it now, Trot," said my aunt. "He is
gone ! "

" Did he die in the hospital? "

"Yes."

She sat immovable beside me ; but, again I saw the stray
tears on her face.

"He was there once before," said my aunt presently.
" He was ailing a longtime — a shattered, broken man, these
many years. When he knew his state in this last illness, he
asked them to send for me. Hp was sorry then. Very sorry. "

"You went, I know, aunt."

"I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards."

" He died the night before we went to Canterbury? "
said I.

My aunt nodded. "No one can harm him now," she
said. " It was a vain threat."

We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Horn-
sey. "Better here than in the streets," said my aunt.
"He was born here."

We alighted ; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I
remember well, where the service was read consigning it to
the dust.

" Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear," said my
aunt, as we walked back to the chariot, "I was married.
God forgive us all ! "

We took our seats in silence ; and so she sat beside me
for a long time, holding my hand. At length she suddenly
burst into tears, and said :

"He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot —
and he was sadly changed ! "

It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon
became composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a
little shaken, she said, or she would not have given way to
it. God forgive us all !

So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 78?

we found the following short note, which had arrived by
that morning's post from Mr. Micawber: —

(K Canterbury,
"Friday
u My dear Madam, and Copperfield,

" The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon
is again enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever with-
drawn from the eyes of a drifting wretch whose Doom is
sealed !

"Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's Hig,
Court of King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause
of Heep v. Micawber, and the defendant in that cause is
the prey of the sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this baili-
wick.

" * Xow's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front of battle lower,
See approach proud Edward's power —
Chains and slavery ! '

Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture
is not supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I
feel I have attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless
you ! Some future traveller, visiting, from motives of cu-
riosity, not unmingled, let us hope, with sympathy, the
place of confinement allotted to debtors in this city, may,
and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces on its wall, inscribed
with a rusty nail,

" The obscure initials

"W. M.

"P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr.
Thomas Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking
extremely well), has paid the debt and costs, in the noble
name of Miss Trotwood ; and chat myself and family are at
the height of earthly bliss. "

788 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER LV.

TEMPEST.

I now approach an event in my life, sc indelible, sc
awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has
preceded it, in these pages, that, from the beginning of my
narrative, I have seen it growing larger and larger as I
advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its
fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days.

For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have
started up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet
seemed raging in my quiet room, in the still* night. I
dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened and uncertain
intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it
and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore,
as strong as any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly
as I behold what happened, I will try to write it down. I
do not recall it, but see it done ; for it happens again before
me.

The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emi-
grant-ship, my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted
for me, when we first met) came up to London. I was
constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers
(they being very much together); but Emily I never
saw.

One evening when the time was close at hand, I was
alone with Peggotty and her brother. Our conversation
turned on Ham. She described to us how tenderly he had
taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he had
borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he
was most tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate
creature never tired ; and our interest in hearing the many
examples which she, who was so much with him, had to
relate, was equal to hers in relating them.

My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cot-
tages at Highgate; I intending to go abroad, and she to
return to her house at Dover. We had a temporary lodg-
ing in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this
evening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed be-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 789

tween Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I
wavered in the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a
letter for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on
board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to
her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my
communication, to send some parting word by me to her
unhappy lover. I ought to give her the opportunity.

I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed,
and wrote to her. I told her that I had seen him, and that
he had requested me to tell her what I have already written
in its place in these sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I
had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. Its
deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or
any man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning ;
with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him to give it to
her ; and went to bed at daybreak.

I was weaker than I knew then ; and, not falling asleep
until the sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day.
I was roused by the silent presence of my aunt at my bed-
side. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose we all do feel
such things.

"Trot, my dear," she said, when I opened my eyes, "I
couldn't make up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty
is here ; shall he come up? "

I replied yes, and he soon appeared.

"Mas'r Davy," he said, when we had shaken hands, "I
giv Eni'ly your letter, Sir, and she writ this heer; and
begged of me fur to ask you to read it, and if you see no
hurt in't, to be so kind as take charge on't."

" Have you read it? " said I.

He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as fol-
lows : —

" I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you
for your good and blessed kindness to me !

" I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I
die They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have
prayed over them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what
you are. and what uncle is. I think what God must be, and can cry
to Him.

"Good bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good bye for
ever in this world. In anotner world, if I am forgiven, I may
wake a child and come to you. All thanks and blessings. Fare*
well, evermore ! "

This, blotted with tears, was the letter.

790 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"May I tell her as 3^011 doen't see no hurt in't, and as
you'll be so kind as take charge on't, Mas'r Davy? " said
Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it.

"Unquestionably." said I — "but I am thinking "

"Yes, Mas'r Davy?"

"I am thinking," said I, "that I'll go down again to
Yarmouth. There's time, and to spare, for me to gc and
come back before the ship sails. My mind is constantly
running on him, in his solitude ; to put this letter of her
writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell
her, in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a
kindness to both of them. I solemnly accepted his com-
mission, dear good fellow, and- cannot discharge it too com-
pletely. The journey is nothing tome. I am restless, and
shall be better in motion. I'll go doAvn to-night."

Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw
that he was of my mind ; and this, if I had required to be
confirmed in my intention, would have had the effect. He
went round to the coach-office, at my request, and took the
box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started, by
that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so
many vicissitudes.

"Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the
first stage out of London, " a very remarkable sky? I don't
remember to have seen one like it."

" Nor I — not equal to it, " he replied. " That's wind, Sir.
There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long."

It was a murky confusion — here and there blotted with
a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel — of
flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, sug-
gesting greater heights in the clouds thao there were depths
below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the
earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge head-
long, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature,
she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been
a wind all day ; and it was rising then, with an extraordi-
nary great sound. In another hour it had much increased,
and the sky was more overcast, and blew hard.

But as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and
densely overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it
came on to blow, harder and harder. It still increased,
until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times,
in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 791

when the nights were not short), the leaders turned abour.;
or came to a dead stop ; and we were often in serious ap-
prehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping
gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of
steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of
trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer
impossibility of continuing the struggle.

When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had
been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns,
but I had never known the like of this, or anything ap-
proaching to it. We came to Ipswich — very late, having
hid to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles
out of London ; and found a cluster of people in the market-
place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful
of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about
the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets
of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung
into a by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had
to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring vil-
lages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth,
and whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still,
there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew harder.

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from
which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force
became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the
sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon
us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat
country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle
lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting
heavily towards us. WTien we came within sight of the
sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above
the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with
towers and buildings. WTien at last we got into the town,
the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with
streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come
through such a night.

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the
sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with
sand and sea-weed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam ;
afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people I
met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not
only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking
behind buildings ; some, now and then braving the fury of

792 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their
course in trying to get zigzag back.

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose
husbands were away in herring or oyster boats, which there
was too much reason to think might have foundered before
they could run in anywhere for safety. Grizzled old sailors
were among the people, shaking their heads, as they looked
from water to sky, and muttering to one another ; shipown-
ers, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and
peering into older faces ; even stout mariners, disturbed and
anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places
of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy.

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient
pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind,
the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded
me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at
their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least
would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back
with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the
beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. AVhen
some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed them-
selves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment
of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its
wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another
monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undu-
lating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skim-
ming through them) were lifted up to hills ; masses of water
shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound ; every
shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change
its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away ;
the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and build-
ings, rose and fell ; the clouds flew fast and thick ; I seemed
to see a rending and upheaving of all nature.

Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable

i.d — for it is still remembered down there, as the great-
est ever known to blow upon that coast— had brought to-
gether, I made my way to his house. It was shut; and as
no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and
by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there,
that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden ex-
igency of ship-repairing in which his skill was required ;
but that he would be back to-morrow morning, in good time.

T went back to the inn ; and when I had washed and

Ut ^avxx. ^OPPERFIELD. <93

aressea, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock
in the afternoon. I had not sat live minutes by the coffee-
room fire, when the waiter coming to stir it, as an excuse
for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with
all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships
had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in
great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on
all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the
last!

I was very much depressed in spirits ; very solitary ; and
felt an uneasiness in Ham's not being there, dispropor-
tionate to the occasion. I was seriously affected, without
knowing how much, by late events ; and my long exposure
to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble
in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear
arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out
into the town, I should not have been surprised, I think, to
encounter some one who I knew must be then in London.
So to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention
in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remem-
brances the place naturally awakened ; and they were par-
ticularly distinct and vivid.

In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the
ships immediately connected itself, without any effort of
my volition, with my uneasiness about Ham. I was per-
suaded that I had an apprehension of his returning from
Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong
with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took
my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he thought his at-
tempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave me the
least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and
prevent it by bringing him with me.

I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard
I was none too soon ; for the boat-builder, with a lantern
in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed,
when I asked him the question, and said there was no fear ;
no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such
a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been
born to seafaring.

So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt
ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I
went back to the inn. If such a wind could rise, I think
it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors

794 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent
rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the pro-
digious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the
morning. But there was now a great darkness besides ; and
that invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful.

I could nob eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue
steadfast to anything. Something within me, faintly an-
swering to the storm without, tossed up the depths of my
memory, and made a tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry
of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea, —
the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham, were always
in the foreground.

My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to re-
fresh myself with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell
into a dull slumber before the tire, without losing my con-
sciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of the place
in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new and
indefinable horror ; and when I awoke —or rather when I
shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair — my
whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear.

I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, lis-
tened to the awful noises : looked at faces, scenes, and figures
in the fire. At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed
clock on the wall tormented me to that degree that I re-
solved to go to bed.

It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some
of the inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morn-
ing. I went to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but,
on my lying down, all such sensations vanished, as if by
magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense refined.

For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water ;
imagining, now, that I heard shrieks out at sea ; now, that
I distinctly heard the firing of signal guns; and now, the
fall of houses in the town. I got up, several times, and
looked out ; but could see nothing, except the reflection in
the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning,
/ad of my own haggard face looking in at me from the
black void.

At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that
1 hurried on my clothes, and went down stairs. In the
large kitchen, where I dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions
hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered to-
gether, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 795

away from the great chimney, and brought near the door.
A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her apron,
and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared,
supposing me to be a spirit ; but the others had more pres-
ence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their com-
pany. One man, referring to the topic they had been
discussing, asked me whether I thought the souls of the
collier-crews who had gone down, were out in the storm?

I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened
the yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand,
the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by ; and
I was obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the
gate again, and make it fast against the wind.

There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when 1
at length returned to it ; but I was tired now, and, getting
into bed again, fell— off a tower and down a precipice— into
the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for a long
time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety
of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length,
I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with
two dear friends, but who they were I don't know, at the
siege of some town in a roar of cannonading.

The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that
I could not hear something I much, desired to hear, until I
made a great exertion and awoke. It was broad day — eight
or nine o'clock; the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries;
and some one knocking and calling at my door.

"What is the matter? " I cried.

"A wreck! Close by!"

I sprang out of bed, and asked, what wreck?

" A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit
and wine. Make haste, Sir, if you want to see her! It's
thought, down on the beach, she'll go to pieces every
moment."

The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase ;
and I wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could,
and ran into the street.

Numbers of people were there before me, all running in
one direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstrip-
ping a good many, and soon came facing the wild sea.

The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though
not more sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed
of, had been diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen

*96 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

guns out of hundreds. But, the sea, having upon it the
additional agitation of the whole night, was infinitely more
terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance
it had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled ■
and the height to which the breakers rose, and, looking
over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in
interminable hosts, was most appalling.

In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and wave,
and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my
first breathless efforts to stand against the weather I was
so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw
nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half -
dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare
arm (a tattoo' d arrow on it, pointing in the same direction)
to the left. Then, 0 great Heaven , I saw it, close in upon us !

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the
deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and.
rigging ; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat —
which she did without a moment's pause, and with a vio-
lence quite inconceivable — beat the side as if it would stave
it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this
portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was
broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly
descried her people at work with axes, especially one active
figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest.
But, a great cry, which was audible even above the wind
and water, rose from the shore at this moment ; the sea,
sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and
carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such
toys, into the boiling surge.

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a
rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping
to and fro. The ship had struck once, the same boatman
hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again.
I understood him to add that she was parting amidships,
and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating
were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long.
As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the
beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep,
clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast ; uppermost^
the active figure with the curling hair.

There was a bell on board ; and as the ship rolled and
dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 797

as the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-
ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she
sprang wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell
rang ; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was
borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and
again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on shore
increased. Men groaned, and clasped their hands ; women
shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly
up and down along the beach, crying for help where no
help could be. I found myself one of these, frantically
imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those
two lost creatures perish before our eyes.

The}' were making out to me, in an agitated way — I
don't know how, for the little I could hear I was scarcely
composed enough to understand — that the life-boat had
been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing ;
and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to
wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with
the shore, there was nothing left to try ; when I noticed
that some new sensation moved the people on the beach,
and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them
to the front.

I ran t» him — as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for
help. But, distracted though I was, by a sight so new to
me and terrible, the determination in his face, and his look,
out to sea — exactly the same look as I remembered in con-
nexion with the morning after Emily' s flight — awoke me to
a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both
arms ; and implored the men with whom I had been speak-
ing, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him
stir from off that sand!

Another cry arose on shore ; and looking to the wreck,
we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower
of the two men, and rly up in triumph round the active
figure left alone upon the mast.

Against such a sight, and against such determination as
that of the calmly desperate man who was already accus-
tomed to lead half the people present, I might as hopefully
have entreated the wind. "Mas'r Davy," he said, cheerily
grasping me by both hands, "if my time is come, 'tis come.
If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all!
Mates, make me ready! I'm a going off! "

I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance

798 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

where the people around me made me stay ; urging, as I
confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going; with help
or without, and that T should endanger the precautions for
his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I
don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but,
I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from
a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of
figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing
alone, in a seaman's frock and trowsers : a rope in his hand,
or slung to his wrist : another round his body : and several
of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter,
which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet.

The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up.
I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life
of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still,
he clung to it. He had a singular red cap on, — not like a
sailor's cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few yielding
planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and
his anticipative death-knell rang, he was seen by all of us
to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I was going
distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to
my mind of a once dear friend.

Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence
of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until
there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward
glance at those who held the rope which was made fast
round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was
buffeting with the water ; rising with the hills, falling with
the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to
land. They hauled in hastily.

He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I
stood ; but he took no thought of that. He seemed hur-
riedly to give them some directions for leaving him more
free — or so I judged from the motion of his arm — and was
gone as before.

And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills,
falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne
in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving
hard and valiantly. The distance was nothing, but the
power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At
length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with
one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,
—when, a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 799

shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up
into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone !

S« .me eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere
cask had been broken, in running to the spot where they
were hauling in. Consternation was in every face. They
drew him to my very feet — insensible — dead. He was
carried to the nearest house ; and, no one preventing me
now, I remained near him, busy, while every means of
restoration were tried ; but he had been beaten to death b}
the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for evei
• As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and
all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when Emily
and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at
the door.

"Sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten
face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, "will
you come over yonder? "

The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was
in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the
arm he held out to support me :

" Has a body come ashore? n

He said, "Yes."

" Do I know it? n I asked then.

He answered nothing.

But, he led me to the shore. Anc. on that part of it
where she and I had looked for shells, two children — on
that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat,
blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind —
among the ruins of the home he had wronged — I saw him
lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him
lie at school.

CHAPTER LVL

rHE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD

No need, 0 Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke
together, in that hour which I so little deemed to be our
parting-hour — no need to have said, " Think of me at my
best ! " I had done that ever ; and could I change now,
looking on this sight !

They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered

800 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

him with a flag, and took him up and bore him on tDwards
the houses. All the men who carried him had known him,
and gone sailing with him, and seen him merry and bold.
They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the midst
of all the tumult ; and took him to the cottage where Death
was already.

But, when they set the bier down on the threshold, they
looked at one another, and at mef and whispered. I knew
why. They felt as if it were not right to lay him down in
the same quiet room.

We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn.
So soon as I could at all collect my thoughts, I sent foi
Joram, and begged him to provide me a conveyance in which
it could be got to London in the night. I knew that the
care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to
receive it, could only rest with me ; and I was anxious to
discharge that duty as faithfully as I could.

I chose the night for the journey, that there might be
less curiosity when I left the town. But, although it was
nearly midnight when I came out of the yard in a chaise,
followed by what I had in charge, there were many people
waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a little
way out upon the road, I saw more ; but at length only the
bleak night and the open country were around me, and the
ashes of my youthful friendship.

Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground
was perfumed by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful
tints of yellow, red, and brown, yet hung upon the trees,
through which the sun was shining, I arrived at Highgate.
I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of what
I had to do ; and left the carriage that had followed me all
through the night, awaiting orders to advance.

The house, when I came up to it? looked just the same.
Not a blind was raised; no sign of life was in the dull
paved court, with its covered way leading to the disused
door. The wind had quite gone down, and nothing
moved.

I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate ; and
when I did ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed
in the very sound of the bell. The little parlour-maid came
out, with the key in her hand ; and looking earnestly at me
as she unlocked the gate, said :
i " I beg your pardon, Sir. Are you ill? "

OF DAVID COFPERFIELD.

"I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.''

"Is anything the matter, Sir? — Mr. James ? "

" Hush ! " said I. " Yes, something has happened, that
1 have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home? "

The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very
seldom out now, even in a carriage ; that she kept her room. ;
that she saw no company, but would see me. Her mistress
was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with her. What
message should she take up stairs?

Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner,
and only to carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down
in the drawing-room (which we had now reached) until she
should come back. Its former pleasant air of occupation
was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had
not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as
a boy, was there. The cabinet in which his mother had
kept his letters was there. I wondered if she ever read
them now ; if she would ever read them more !

The house was so still that I heard the girl's light step
up stairs. On her return, she brought a message, to the
effect that Mrs. Steerforth was an invalid and could not
come down ; but, that if I would excuse her being in her
chamber, she would be glad t© see me. In a few moments
I stood before her.

She was in his room ; not in her own. I felt, of course,
that she had taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him ;
and that the many tokens of his old sports and accomplish-
ments, by which she was surrounded, remained there, just
as he had left them, for the same reason. She murmured,
however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of
her own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her in-
firmity ; and with her stately look repelled the least sus-
picion of the truth.

At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first
moment of her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I
was the bearer of evil tidings. The scar sprang into view
that instant. She withdrew herself a step behind the chair
to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth' s observation;
and scrutinised me with a piercing gaze that never faltered,
never shrank.

" I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, Sir," said
Mrs. Steerforth.

P I am unhappily a widower," said L
51

802 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"You are very young to know so great a loss," she re
turned. " I am grieved to hear it. I am grieved to heai
it. I hope Time will be good to you."

"I hope Time," said I, looking at her, "will be good to
all of us. Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that,
in our heaviest misfortunes."

The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes,
alarmed her. The whole course of her thoughts appeared
to stop, and change.

I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name,
but it trembled. She repeated it to herself, two or three
times, in a low tone. Then, addressing me, she said, with
enforced calmness :

" My son is ill."

''Very ill."

" You have seen him? ft

"I have."

" Are you reconciled? "

I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly
turned her head towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had
been standing at her elbow, and in that moment I said, by
the motion of my lips, to Rosa, "Dead! "

That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look be-
hind her, and read, plainly written, what she was not yet
prepared to know, I met her look quickly ; but I had seen
Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with vehe-
mence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her
face.

The handsome lady — so like, Oh so like! — regarded me
with a fixed look, and put her hand to her forehead. I
besought her to be calm, and prepare herself to bear what
I had to tell ; but I should rather have entreated her to
weep, for she sat like a stone figure.

" When I was last here," I faltered, "Miss Dartle told
me he was sailing here and there. The night before last
was a dreadful one at sea. If he were at sea that night,
and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he was ; and if the
vessel that was seen should really be the ship which "

"Rosa! " said Mrs. Steerforth, "come to me! "

She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her
eyes gleamed like tire as she confronted his mother, and
broke into a frightful laugh.

"Now," she said, "is your pride appeased, you mad

OF DAVID COPPERFiELD 803

woman? Sow has he made atonement to you with his

life? Do you hear?— His life ! "

Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and
making no sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with
a wide stare.

" Ay ! " cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the
breast, "look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me!
Look here ! " striking the scar, " at your dead child's handi-
work!"

The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went
to my heart. Always the same. Always inarticulate and
stifled. Always accompanied with an incapable motion of
the head, but with no change of face. Always proceeding
from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were
locked and the face frozen up in pain.

"Do you remember when he did this? " she proceeded.
*' Do you remember when, in his inheritance of your nature,
and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did
this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, marked until
I die with his high displeasure ; and moan and groan for
what you made him ! V

"Miss Dartle," I entreated her. "For Heaven's
sake "

" I will speak! " she said, turning on me with her light-
ning eyes. " Be silent, you ! Look at me, I say, proud
mother of a proud false son ! Moan for your nurture of
him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss
of him, moan for mine ! "

She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare,
worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by
inches.

"You, resent his self-will!" she exclaimed. "You,
injured by his haughty temper! You, who opposed to
both, when your hair was grey, the qualities which made
both when you gave him birth ! You, who from his cradle
reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should
have been! Are you rewarded, now, for your years of
trouble?"

" 0, Miss Dartle, shame ! 0 cruel ! "

"I tell you," she returned, "I will speak to her. No
power on earth should stop me, while I was standing here !
Have T been silent all these years, and shall I not speak
now° I .cved him better than vouever loved him! " turn-

804 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ing on her fiercely. " I could have loved him, and asked
no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the
slave of his caprices for a word of love a-year. I should
have been. Who knows it better than I? You were ex-
acting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have
been devoted — would have trod your paltry whimpering
underfoot ! "

With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if
she actually did it.

" Look here ! " she said, striking the scar again, with a
relentless hand. " When he grew into the better under-
standing of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of
it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the
ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to
such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted
him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me.
Yes, he did ! Many a time, when you were put off with a
slight word, he has taken Me to his heart ! "

She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her
frenzy — for it was little less — yet with an eager remem-
brance of it, in which the smouldering embers of a gentler
feeling kindled for the moment.

" I descended — as I might have known I should, but that
he fascinated me with his boyish courtship — into a doll, a
trifle for the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and
taken up, and trifled with, as the inconstant humour took
him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his fancy
died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any
power I had, than I would have married him on his being
forced to take me for his wife. We fell away from one
another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, and were
not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece
of furniture between you both ; having no eyes, no ears, no
feelings, no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you
made him; not for your love. I tell you that the time was,
when I loved him better than you ever did ! "

She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting
the wide stare, and the set face ; and softened no more,
when the moaning was repeated, than if the face had been
a picture.

"Miss Dartle," said I, "if you can be so obdurate as not
to feel for this afflicted mother "

"Who feels forme?" she sharply retorted "She has

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 805

sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps
to-day!"

" And if his faults *; I began.

"Faults!" she cried, bursting into passionate tears.
" Who dares malign him? He had a soul worth millions
of the friends to whom he stooped ! M

" No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him
in dearer remembrance, than I," I replied. "I meant to
say, if you have no compassion for his mother ; or if his .
faults— you have been bitter on them "

"It's false," she cried, tearing her black hair; "I lcved
him!"

" — cannot," I went on. "be banished from your remem-
brance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one
you have never seen before, and render it some help ! "

All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked un-
changeable. Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the
same dumb way from time to time, with the same helpless
motion of the head ; but giving no other sign of life. Miss
Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to loosen
the dress.

" A curse upon you ! " she said, looking round at me,
with a mingled expression of rage and grief. " It was in
an evil hour that you ever came here ! A curse upon you !
Go!"

After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the
bell, the sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken
the impassive figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees,
was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to
and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender
means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid of
leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again ; and alarmed
the house as I went out.

Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his
mother's room. She was just the same, they told me;
Miss Dartle never left her; doctors were in attendance,
many things had been tried ; but she lay like a statue, ex-
cept for tb<3 low sound now and then.

I went through the dreary house, and darkened the
windows. The windows of the chamber where he lay, I
darkened last. I lifted up the leaden hand, and held it to
my heart; and all the world seemed death and silence,
broken only by his mother's moaning.

£06 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER LVli

THE EMIGRANTS

One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself oc
the shock of these emotions. It was, to conceal what had
occurred from those who were going away ; and to dismiss
them on their voyage in happy ignorance. In this, no time
was to be lost.

I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided
to him the task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and in-
telligence of the late catastrophe. He zealously undertook
to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it
might, without such precautions, reach him.

" If it penetrates to him, Sir," said Mr. Micawber, strik-
ing himself on the breast, " it shall first pass through this
body!"

Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of him-
self to a new state of society, had acquired a bold buc-
caneering air, not absolutely lawless, but defensive and
prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the
wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of
civilisation, and about to return to his native wilds.

He had provided himelf, among other things, with a
complete suit of oil-skin, and a straw hat with a very low
crown, pitched or caulked on the outside. In this rough
clothing, with a common mariner's telescope under his arm,
and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as look-
ing out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after
his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I
may so express it, were cleared for action. I found Mrs.
Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bon-
nets, made fast under the chin ; and in a shawl which tied
her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received
me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in
a strong knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for
stormy weather, in the same manner; with nothing super-
fluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly visible in a
Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw ;
and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 807

impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son
wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being
ready to lend a hand in any direction, and to "tumble
up," 01 sing out, "Yeo — Heave — Yeo!" on the shortest
notice.

Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled
on the wooden steps, at that time known as Hungerford
Stairs, watching the departure of a boat with some of their
property on board. I had told Traddles of the terrible
event, and it had greatly shocked him ; but there could be
no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had
come to help me in this last service. It was here that I
took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise.

The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty,
tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close
to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms over-
hung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects
of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so
many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their
room. It was one of the wooden chambers up-stairs, with
the tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were,
there, busily making some little extra comforts, in the way
of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting,
with the old insensible work-box, yard measure, and bit of
wax-candle before her, that had now outlived so much.

It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to
whisper Mr. Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in,
that I had given the letter, and all was well. But I did
both, and made them happy. If I showed any trace of
what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for
it.

" And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber? * asked
my aunt.

Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either
my aunt or his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he
had expected yesterday.

" The boat brought you word, I suppose? " said my aunt

"It did, ma'am," he returned.

" Well? " said my aunt. "And she sails r

"Madam," he replied, "I am informed that we must
positively be on board before seven to-morrow morning."

'■ Heyday!" said my aunt, "that's soon. Is it a sea-
going fact, Mr. Peggotty? "

808 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"?Tis so, ma'ani. She'll drop down the river with that
theer tide. If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at
Gravesen', arternoon o' next day, they'll see the last on
ns "

" And that we shall do," said I, "be sure! "

"Until then, and until we are at sea," observed Mr.
Micawber, with a glance of intelligence at me, "Mr Peg-
gotty and myself will constantly keep a double look-out
together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my love,"
said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent
way, "my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to
solicit, in my ear, that he should have the privilege of
ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition of a
moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly asso-
ciated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England.
I allude to — in short, Punch. Under ordinary circum-
stances, I should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss
Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but "

" I can only say for myself," said my aunt, "that I will
drink all happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with
the utmost pleasure."

" And I too ! " said Agnes, with a smile.

Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where
he appeared to be quite at home ; and in due time returned
with a steaming jug. I could not but observe that he had
been peeling the lemons with his own clasp-knife, which,
as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot
long ; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation,
on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two
elder members of the family I now found to be provided
with similar formidable instruments, while every child had
its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a strong line.
In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr.
Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest
son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might
easily have done, for there was a shelf -full in the room,
served it out to them in a series of villainous little tin pots ;
and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking
out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his
pocket at the close of the evening.

"The luxuries of the old country," said Mr Micawber,
with an intense satisfaction in their renouncement, "wa
abandon. The denizens of the forest cannot, of course,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 309

expect to participate in the refinements of tne land of the
Free."

Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was
wanted down-stairs.

"I have a presentiment/' said Mrs. Micawber, setting
down her tin pot, "that it is a member of my family.'7

"If so, my dear," observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual
suddenness of warmth on that subject, " as the member of
your family — whoever he, she, or it, may be — has kept us
waiting for a considerable period, perhaps the Member may
now wait my convenience."

"Micawber," said his wife, in a low tone, "at such a
time as this "

"' It is not meet/ n said Mr. Micawber, rising, "' that
every nice offence should bear its comment ! ' Emma, I
stand reproved."

"The loss, Micawber," observed his wife, "has been my
family's, not yours. If my family are at length sensible
of the deprivation to which their own conduct has, in the
past, exposed them, and now desire to extend the hand x>f
fellowship, let it not be repulsed."

"My dear," he returned, "so be it!"

"If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber," said his
wife.

"Emma," he returned, "that view of the question is, at
such a moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly
pledge myself to fall upon your family's neck; but the
member of your family, who is now in attendance, shall
lave no genial warmth frozen by me."

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time ;
in the course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free
from an apprehension that words might have arisen between
him and the Member. At length the same boy re-appeared,
ana presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, " Heep v. Micawber. " From this docu-
ment, I learned that Mr. Micawber being again arrested,
was in a final paroxysm of despair : and that he begged me
to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they might
prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence,
in jail lie also requested, as a last act of friendship, that
i would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget
that buch it Being ever lived.

Of course I answered this note hy going down with tht

810 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPExLZNCE

boy to pay the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting
in a corner, looking darkly at the sheriff's officer who had
effected the capture. On his release, he embraced me with
the utmost fervour ; and made an entr}^ of the transaction
in his pocket-book — being very particular, I recollect, about
a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of
the total.

This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to
him of another transaction. On our return to the room
upstairs (where he accounted for his absence by saying that
it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had
no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, folded
small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked.
From the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never
saw such sums out of a school ciphering-book. These, it
seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he
called "the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven, and
a half," for various periods. After a careful consideration
of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had
come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented
the amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen
calendar months, and fourteen days, from that date. For
this he had drawn p.note-of-hand with great neatness, which
he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a discharge of his
debt in full (as between man and man), with many acknowl-
edgments.

u I have still a presentiment, " said Mrs. Micawber, pen-
sively shaking her head, " that my family will appear on
board, before we finally depart."

Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the
subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.

" If you have any opportunity of sending letters home;
on your passage, Mrs. Micawber,'"'* said my aunt, "you must
let us hear from you, you know.'"

"My dear Miss Trotwood," she replied, "I shall only be
too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from as, I
shall not fail to correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as
an old and familiar friend, will not object to receive occa-
sional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when
the twins were yet unconscious? "'

T said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an
opportunity of writing.

''Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,*

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 311

said Mr. Micawber. " The ocean, in these times, is a per-
fect fleet of ships ; and we can hardly fail to encounter many,
in running over. It is merely crossing," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, trifling with his eye-glass, " merely crossing. The dis-
tance is quite imaginary."

I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like
Mr. Micawber, that, when he went from London to Canter-
bury, he should have talked as if he were going to the
farthest limits of the earth ; and, when he went from Eng-
land to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across-
the Channel.

'•On the voyage, I shall endeavour," said Mr. Micawber,
w occasionally to spin them a yarn ; and the melody of my
sou Wilkins will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire.
When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on— an expression
in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety — she
will give them, I dare say, Little Tafflin. Porpoises and
dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart
our Bows, and, either on the Starboard or the Larboard
Quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried.
In short," said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air,
" the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and
aloft, that when the look-out, stationed in the main-
top, cries Land-oh ! we shall be very considerably aston-
ished!"

With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin
pot, as if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-
class examination before the highest naval authorities.

"What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said
Mrs. Micawber, " is, that in some branches of our family
we may live again in the old country. Do not frown,
Micawber ! I do not now refer to my own family, but to
our children's children. However vigorous the sapling,"
said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, "I cannot forget
the parent-tree ; and when our race attains to eminence and
fortiiDe, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into the
soifers of Britannia."

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, " Britannia must take
her chance. I am bound to say that she has never done
much for me, and that I have no particular wish upon the
subject."

"Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber, "there you are
WTong. You are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime,

812 PERSONAL fflbTOR\ AND EXPERIENCE

to strengthen, not to weaken, the connexion between youi
self and Albion."

"The connexion in question, my love," rejoined Mr.
Micawber, " has not laid rne, I repeat, under that load of
personal obligation, that I am at all sensitive as to the
formation of another connexion."

"Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber. "There, 1 again
say, you are wrong. You do not know your power? Micaw-
ber. It is that which will strengthen, even in this step
you are about to take, the connexion between yourself and
Albion."

Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows
raised; half receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micaw-
ber's views as they were stated, but very sensible of their
foresight.

"My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "I
wish Mr. Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me
highly important that Mr. Micawber should, from the hour
of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old knowledge
of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I
have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My
disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical. I know
that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve
many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my
eyes to those facts. But, I also know what Mr. Micawber
is. I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And there-
fore I consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawbei
should feel his position."

"My love," he observed, "perhaps you will allow me to
remark that it is barely possible that I do feel my position
at the present moment."

"I think not, Micawber," she rejoined. "!N"ot fully
My dear Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber' s is not a common
case. Mr Micawber is going to a distant country, expressly
in order that he may be fully understood and appreciated
for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his stand
upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say, ' This country I am
come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches?
Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let
them be brought forward. They are mine ! \ "

Mr Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there
was a good deal in this idea.

"T wish Mr. Micawber, if 1 make myself understood,'

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 813

said Mrs. Micawber, in her argumentative tone, "to be the
Caesar of his own fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield,
appears to me to be his true position. From the first mo-
ment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon
that vessel's prow and say, ' Enough of delay: enough of
disappointment: enough of limited means. That was in
the old country. This is the new. Produce your repara-
tion. Bring it forward ! ' "

Mr. Micawber folded his arms, in a resolute manner, as
if he were then stationed on the figure-head.

"And doing that," said Mrs. Micawber, " — feeling his
position — am I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will
strengthen, and not weaken, his connexion with Britain?
An important public character arising in that hemisphere,
shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home?
Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wield-
ing the rod of talent and of power in Australia, will be
nothing in England? I am but a woman ; but I should be
unworthy of niyself , and of my papa, if I were guilty oi
such absurd weakness."

Mrs. Micawber' s conviction that her arguments were un-
answerable, gave a moral elevation to her tone which I
think I had never heard in it before.

"And therefore it is," said Mrs. Micawber, ''that I the
more wish, that, at a future period, we may live again on
the parent soil. Mr. Micawber may be — I cannot disguise
from myself that the probability is, Mr. Micawber will be
— a page of History; and he ought then to be represented
in the country which gave him birth, and did not give him
employment ! "

"My love," observed Mr. Micawber, "it is impossible
for me not to be touched by your affection. I am always
willing to defer to your good sense. What will be — will
oe. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my native country
any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our
descendants ! "

" That's well," said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peg-
gotty, " and I drink my love to you all, and every blessing
and success attend you ! "

Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been
nursing, one on each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber
in drinking to all of us in return ; and when he and the
Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his brown

814 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his
way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go where ha
would.

Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden
spoon into Mr. Micawber s pot, and pledge us in its con-
tents. When this was done, my aunt and Agnes rose, and
parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful farewell.
They were all crying ; the children hung about Agnes tc
the last ; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very dis
tressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle,
that must have made the room look, from the river, like a
miserable lighthouse.

I went down again next morning to see that they were
away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five
o'clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap
such partings make, that although my association of them
with the tumble -down public-house and the wooden stairs
dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted,
now that they were gone.

In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I
went down to Gravesend. We found the ship in the river,
surrounded by a crowd of boats ; a favourable wind blow-
ing; the signal for sailing at her mast-head. I hired a
boat directly, and we put off to her ; and getting through
the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre,
went on board.

Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me
that Mr. Micawber had just now been arrested again (and
for the last time) at the suit of Heep, and that, in com-
pliance with a request I had made to him, he had paid the
money : which I repaid him. He then took us down be-
tween decks ; and there, any lingering fears I had of his
having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dis-
pelled by Mr. Micawber' s coming out of the gloom, taking
his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and tell-
ing me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment,
since the night before last.

It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and
dark, that, at first, I could make out hardly anything ; but,
by degrees, it cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed
to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in a picture by Ostade.
Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship,
and the emigrant -berths, and chests, and bundles, and bar-

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 815

rels, and heaps of miscellaneous baggage— lighted up, here
and there, by dangling lanterns ; and elsewhere by the yel-
low daylight straying down a windsail or a hatchway— were

crowded groups of people, making new friendships, taking
leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and
drinking; some, already settled down into the possession
of their few feet of space, with their little households ar-
ranged, and tiny children established on stools, or in dwarf
elbow-chairs ; others, despairing of a resting-place, and
wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a
week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and
women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before
them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of
England on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of
its soot and smoke upon their skins ; every age and occupa-
tion appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of
the 'tween decks.

As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw
sitting, by an open port, with one of the Micawber children
near her, a figure like Emily's; it first attracted my atten-
tion, by another figure parting from it with a kiss ; and
as it glided calmly away through the disorder, remind-
ing me of — Agnes! But in the rapid motion and con-
fusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, I
lost it again; and only knew that the time was come
when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship;
that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and
that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger stoop-
ing woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's
goods.

" Is there any last wured, Mas?r Davy? " said* he. " la
there any one forgotten thin^ afore we parts? "

" One thing ! " said I. u Martha ! "

He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the
shoulder, and Martha stood before me

" Heaven bless you, you good man ! " cried I. " You take
her with you ! "

She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could
speak no more, at that time, but 1 wrung his hand; and if
ever I have loved and honoured any man, I loved and hon-
oured that man in my soul.

The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest
trial that I had, remain^1 I told him what the noble

816 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

spirit that was gone, had given me in charge to say at
parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged me,
in return, with many messages of affection and regret fov
those deaf ears, he moved me more.

The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping
nurse upon my arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took
leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was looking distractedly
about for her family, even then ; and her last words to me
were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber.

We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little
iistance to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then
calm, radiant sunset. She lay between us and the red light ;
and every taper line and spar was visible against the glow.
A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful,
as the glorious ship, lying still, on the flushed water, with
all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there
clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never
saw,

Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind,
and the ship began to move, there broke from all the boats
three resounding cheers, which those on board took up, and
echoed back, and which were echoed and re-echoed. My
heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the
waving of the hats and handkerchiefs — and then I saw
her!

Then I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his
shoulder. He pointed to us with an eager hand; and she
saw us, and waved her last good-bye to me. Ay, Emily,
beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the utmost trust
of thy bruised heart ; for he has clung to thee, with all the
might of his great love !

Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upo-
the deck, apart together, she clinging to him, and he hcld-
ing her, they solemnly passed away, The nigh^ had fallen
on the Kentish hills when we were rowed ashore-- and fallen
darkly upon me

OP JAVID COPPERFIELD 817

CHAPTER LV1II.

ABSENCE.

It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me,
haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear re-
membrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and
regrets.

I went away from England ; not knowing, even then, how
great the shock was, that I had to bear. I left all who
were dear to me, and went away; and believed that I had
borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a field of battle
will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is
struck, so I, when I was left alone with my undisciplined
heart, bad no conception of the wound with which it had
to strive.

The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by
little, and grain by grain. The desolate feeling with which
I went abroad, deepened and widened hourly. At first it
was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, wherein I could dis-
tinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees, it became a
hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost — love, friend-
ship, interest; of all that had been shattered — my first
trust, my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life ;
of all that remained — a ruined blank and waste, lying wide
around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon.

If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I
mourned for my child-wife, taken from her blooming world
so young. I mourned for him who might have won the
love and admiration of thousands, as he had won mine long
ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest
in the stormy sea ; and for the wandering remnants of the
simple home, where I had heard the night -wind blowing,
when I was a child.

From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at
length no hope of ever issuing again. I roamed from place
to place, carrying my burden with me everywhere. I felt
its whole weight now ; and I drooped beneath it, and I said
in my heart that it could never be lightened.

When this despondency was it its worst, I believed that I
52

81S PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

should die. Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die
at home ; and actually turned back on my road, that I might
get there soon. At other times, I passed on farther away,
from city to city, seeking I know not what, and trying to
leave I know not what behind.

It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary
phases of distress of mind through which I passed. There
are some dreanis that can only be imperfectly and vaguely
described; and, when I oblige myself to look back on this
time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. I see
myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns,
palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fan'
tastic streets —the old abiding places of History and Fancy
— as a dreamer might ; bearing my painful load through all,
and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me.
Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the
night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up
from it — as at last I did, thank Heaven!— and from its
long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn.

For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening
cloud upon my mind. Some blind reasons that I had for
not returning home — reasons then struggling within me.
vainly, for more distinct expression — kept me on my pil-
grimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place
to place, stopping nowhere ; sometimes, I had lingered long
in one spot. I had had no purpose, no sustaining soul
within me, anywhere

I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one
of the great passes of the Alps, and had since wandered
with a guide among the by-ways of the mountains. If those
awful solitudes had spoken to my heart, I did not know it.
1 had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and
precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and
snow ; but as yet, they had taught me nothing else.

I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley,
where I was to rest. In the course of my descent to it, by
the winding track along the mountain- side, from which 1
saw it shining far below, I think some long-unwonted sense
of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence awak-
ened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. I remember
pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all op-
pressive, not quite despairing. I remember almost hoping
that some better change was possible within me.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 819

I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining
on the remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal
clouds. The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in
which the little village lay, were richly green; and high
above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleav-
ing the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the
avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy
steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks
of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow.
Dotted here and there on the mountain' s-side, each tiny dot
a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the
towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. So
did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden
bridge across the stream, where the stream tumbled over
broken rocks, and roared away among the trees. In the
quiet air, there was a sound of distant singing — shepherd
voices; but, as one bright evening cloud floated midway
along the mountain' s-side, I could almost have believed it
came from there, and was not earthly music. All at once,
in this serenity, great Mature spoke to me ; and soothed me
to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as I
had not wept yet, since Dora died!

I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few
minutes before, and had strolled out of the village to read
them while my supper was making ready. Other packets
had missed me, and I had received none for a long time.
Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had ar-
rived at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy
to write a letter since I left home.

The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the
writing of Agnes.

She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had
hoped. That was all she told me of herself. The rest
referred to me.

She gave me no advice ; she urged no duty on me ; she
only told me, in her own fervent manner, what her trust in
me was. She knew (she said) how such a nature as mine
would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial and
emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that
in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher
tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who
so gloried in my fame, and so looked forward to its aug-
mentation, well knew that I would labour on. She knew

820 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be
strength. As the endurance of my childish days had done
its part to make me what I was, so greater calamities would
nerve me on, .to be yet better than I was ; and so, as they
had taught me, would I teach others. She commended me
to God, who had taken my innocent darling to His rest.;
and in her sisterly affection cherished me always, and was
always at my side go where I would; proud of what I had
done, but infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to
do.

I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had 1
been an hour ago ! When I heard the voices die away, and
saw the quiet evening cloud grow dim, and all the colours
in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon the mountain-
tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt
that the night was passing from my mind, and all its
shadows clearing, there was no name for the love I bore
her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then.

I read her letter, many times. I wrote to her before I
slept. I told her that I had been in sore need of her help ;
that without her I was not, and I never had been, what
she thought me ; but, that she inspired me to be that, and
I would try.

I did try. In three months more, a year would have
passed since the beginning of my sorrow I determined to
make no resolutions until the expiration of those three
months, but to try. I lived in that valley, and its neigh-
bourhood, all the time.

The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from
home for some time longer ; to settle myself for the present
in Switzerland, which was growing dear to me in the re-
membrance of that evening ; to resume my pen ; to workc

I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me ; I
sought out Nature, never sought in vain ; and I admitted
to my breast the human interest I had lately shrunk from.
It was not long, before I had almost as many friends in the
valley as in Yarmouth ; and when I left it, before the winter
set in, for Geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial
greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were
not conveyed in English words.

I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a
Story, with a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my
experience, and sent it to TradcUes, and he arranged for its

OP DAVID COPPERFEELD. 821

publication very advantageously for me ; and the tidings of
my growing reputation began to reach me from travellers
whom I encountered by chance. After some rest and change,
I fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which
took strong possession of me. As I advanced in the execu-
tion of this task, I felt it more and more, and roused my
utmost energies to do it well. This was my third work ot
fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of
rest, I thought of returning home.

For a long time, though studying and working patiently 5
I had accustomed myself to robust exercise. My healthy
severely impaired when I left England, was quite restored.
I had seen much. I had been in many countries, and I
hope I had improved my store of knowledge.

I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall
here, of this term of absence — with one reservation. I
have made it, thus far, with no purpose of suppressing any
of my thoughts ; for, as I have elsewhere said, this narra-
tive is my written memory. I have desired to keep the
most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. I
enter on it now.

I cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own
heart, as to know when I began to think that I might have
set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot say
at what stage of my grief it first became associated with
the reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had thrown
away the treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard
some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy
loss or want of something never to be realised, of which I
had been sensible. But the thought came into my mind as
a new reproach and new regret, when I was left so sad and
lonely in the world.

If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in
the weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this. It was
what I remotely dreaded when I was first impelled to stay
away from England. I could not have borne to lose the
smallest portion of hei sisterly affection ; yet, in that be-
trayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto
unknown.

I could not forget that the feeling with which she now
regarded me had grown up in my own free choice and course.
That; if she had ever loved me with another love — and I
sometimes thought the time was when she might have done

822 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

so — I had cast it awa;} . It was nothing, now, that I had
accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere
children, as one who was far removed from my wild fancies.
I had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another ob-
ject; and what I might have done, I had not done; and
what Agnes was to me, I and her own noble heart had
made her.

In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in
me, when I tried to get a better understanding of myself
and be a better man, I did glance, through some indefinite
probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel
the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her.
But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and de-
parted from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should
hold her the more sacred ; remembering the confidences I
had reposed in her, her knowledge of my errant heart, the
sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and sister,
and the victory she had won. If she had never loved me,
could I believe that she would love me now?

I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her
constancy and fortitude ; and now I felt it more and more.
Whatever I might have been to her, or she to me, if I had
been more worthy of her long ago, I was not now, and she
was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had
deservedly lost her.

That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled
me with unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a
sustaining sense that it was required of me, in right and
honour, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought
of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes,
from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright
and fresh — which consideration was at the root of every
thought I had concerning her — is all equally true. I made
no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that
I was devoted to her ; but I brought the assurance home to
myself, that it was now too late, and that our long-subsist-
ing relation must be undisturbed.

I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing
out to me what might have happened, in those years that
were destined not to try us ; I had considered how the things
that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their
effects, as those that are accomplished. The very years she
*poke of, were realities now; for my correction ; and would

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 823

iiave been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had
parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what
might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means
of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more con-
scious of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through
the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the con-
viction that it could never be.

These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were
jhe shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my
departure to the time of my return home, three years after-
wards. Three years had elapsed since the sailing of the
emigrant ship ; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in
the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel
that brought me home, looking on the rosy water where I
had seen the image of that ship reflected.

Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as
they went by. And home was very dear to me, and Agnes
too — but she was not mine — she was never to be mine. She
might have been, but that was past !

CHAPTER LIS

RETURN

I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It
was dark and raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a
minute than I had seen in a year. I walked from the
Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach ;
and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen
gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit
that they were very dingy friends.

I have often remarked — I suppose everybody has — that
one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be
the signal for change in it. As I looked out of the coaoh-
window, and observed that an old house on Fish Street Hill,
which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or brick-
layer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence ;
and that a neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity
and inconvenience, was being drained and widened ; I half
sxpected to find St. Paul's Cathedral looking older.

For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, [ was

824 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

prepared. My aunt had long been re-established at Dover>
and Traddles had begun to get into some little practice at
the Bar, in the very first term after my departure. He had
chambers in Gray's Inn, now; and had told me, in his last
letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united
to the dearest girl in the world.

They expected me home before Christmas ; but had no
idea of my returning so soon . I had purposely misled them,
that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise.
And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disap-
pointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and
silent, through the misty streets.

The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful
lights, did something for me ; and when I alighted at the
door of the Gray's Inn Coffee-house, I had recovered my
spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different time when I
had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the
changes that had come to pass since then ; but that was
natural.

"Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn? '*' I
asked the waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room nre.

"Holborn Court, Sir. Number two."

"Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers,
I believe? " said I.

"Well, Sir," returned the waiter, "probably he has, Sir;
but I am not aware of it myself."

This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for
help to a waiter of more authority — a stout, potential old
man, with a double-chin, in black breeches and stockings,
who came out of a place like a churchwarden's pew, at the
end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-
box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers.

"Mr. Traddles," said the spare waiter. "Number two
in the Court."

The potential waiter waved him away, and turned,
gravely, to me.

"I was inquiring," said I, "whether Mr. Traddles, at
number two in the Court, has not a rising reputation among
the lawyers? "

" Never heard his name," said the waiter, in a rich husky
voice.

I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.

"He's a young man, sure? " said the portentous waiter,

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 825

fixing his eyes severely on me. '■ How long has he been in
the Inn? "

"Not above three years," said 1.

The waiter, who I supposed had lived m his churchwar-
den's pew for forty years, could not pursue such an insig-
nificant subject. He asked me what I would have for
dinner?

I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast
down on Traddles's account. There seemed to be no hope
for him. I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak and
stood before the fire musing on his obscurity.

Ab I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not
help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually
blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise
in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-estab-
lished, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room,
which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly
the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy — if he
ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the
shining tables, where I saw niyself reflected, in unruffled
depths of old mahogany ; and at the lamps, without a flaw
in their trimming or cleaning ; and at the comfortable green
curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the
boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning;
and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the conscious-
ness of pipes of expensive old port-wine below ; and both
England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult
indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom to
change my wet clothes ; and the vast extent of that old-
wainscoted apartment (which was over the archway leading
to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of
the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the
chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning
on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth.
I came down again to my dinner: and even the slow com-
fort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the place —
which was bare of guests, the Long Vacation not yet being
over — were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles, and his
small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come.

I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it
quite dashed my hopes for my friend. The chief waiter
had had enough of me. He came near me no more ; but
deyoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to

826 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

meet whom, a pint of special port seemed to come out of
the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. The
second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old
gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the Square,
and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he
would leave to his laundress's daughter; likewise that it
was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau,
all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon
and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by
mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for
lost ; and settled in my own mind that there was no hope
for him.

Being very anxious to see - the dear old fellow, neverthe-
less, I despatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calcu-
lated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter, and
hurried out by the back-way. Xumber two in the Court
was soon reached ; and an inscription on the door-post in-
forming me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers
on the top story, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old
staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each lauding
by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dun-
geon of dirty glass.

In the course of rny stumbling up-stairs, I fancied I
heard a pleasant sound of laughter ; and not the laughter
of an attorney or barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's
clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happening, how-
ever, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where
the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn had left a plank defi-
cient, I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered
my footing all was silent.

Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the jour-
ney, my heart beat high when I found the outer door, which
had Mr. Traddles painted on it, open. I knocked. A
considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. 1
therefore knocked again.

A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk,
who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me
as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself.

"Is Mr. Traddles within? " I said.

"Yes, Sir, but he's engaged"

"I want to see him."

After a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad
decided to let me in; and opening the door wider for that

OF DAVIT) COPPERFIELD. 82?

purpose, admitted me, first, into a little closet of a hall,
and next into a little sitting-room ; where I came into the
presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a
table, and bending over papers.

"Good God!" cried Traddles, looking up. "It's Cop-
perfield ! " and rushed into my arms, where I held him
tight.

" All well, my dear Traddles? "

" All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but
good news ! "

We cried with pleasure, both of us.

'My dear fellow," said Traddles, rumpling his hair in
h>s excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation,
" my dearest Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome
friend, how glad I am to see you ! How brown you are !
How glad I am ! Upon my life and honour, I never was
so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never! "

I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was
quite unable to speak, at first.

" My dear fellow ! * said Traddles. " And grown so
famous! My glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me,
when did you come, where have you come from, what have
you been doing? n

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Trad-
dles, who had clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all
this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and
pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild
delusion that it was a great-coat. Without putting down
the poker, he now hugged me again ; and I hugged him ;
and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat
down, and shook hands across the hearth.

"To think," said Traddles, "that you should have been
so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear
old boy, and not at the ceremony ! "

"What ceremony, my dear Traddles? "

" Good gracious me ! " cried Traddles, opening his eyes
in his old way. "Didn't you get my last letter? "

"Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony."

" WTiy, my dear Copperfield," said Traddles, sticking his
hair upright with both hands, and then putting his hands
on my knees, "I am married! "

"Married! " I cried, joyfully.

" Lord bless me, yes I v said Traddles—" by the Eev

328 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Horace — to Sophy — down in Devonshire. Why, my dear
boy; she's behind the window-curtain! Look here! "

To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came
at that same instant, laughing and blushing, from her place
of concealment. And a more cheerful, amiable, honest,
happy, bright-looking bride I believe (as I could not help
saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her as
an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all
my might of heart.

"Dear me," said Traddles, "what a delightful re-unioi
this is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copper
field ! God bless my soul, how happy I am ! "

" And so am I," said I.

" And I am sure lam!" said the blushing and laughing
Sophy.

"We are all as happy as possible!" said Traddles.
" Even the girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot
them!"

"Forgot?" said I.

"The girls," said Traddles. "Sophy's sisters. They
are staying with us. They have come to have a peep at
London. The fact is, when — was it you that tumbled up
stairs, Copperfield? "

" It was," said I, laughing.

" Well then, when you tumbled up stairs," said Trad-
dles, " I was romping with the girls. In point of fact,
we were playing at Puss in the Corner. But as that
wouldn't do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn't
look quite professional if they were seen by a client,
they decamped. And they are now — listening, I have no
ioubt," said Traddles, glancing at the door of another
room.

"I am sorry," said I, laughing afresh, "to have occa
sionad such a dispersion."

" Upon my word," rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted
" ii you had seen them running away, and running back
again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they
had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest
manner, you wouldn't have said so. My love, will you
fetch the girls?"

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the
adjoining room with a peal of laughter.

" Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield? " said

OP DAVID CGPPfiRPiELF) 829

f raddles. " It's very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up
these old rooms. To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow
who has lived alone all his life, you know, it's positively
delicious. It's charming. Poor things, they have had a
great loss in Sophy — who, I do assure you, Copperfield, is,
and ever was, the dearest girl!— and it gratifies me beyond
expression to find them in such good spirits. The society
of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not
professional, but it's very delightful."

Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending
that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving
me some pain by what he had said, I expressed my concur-
rence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased
him greatly.

"But then," said Traddles, "our domestic arrangements
are, to say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my
dear Copperfield. Even Sophy1 s being here, is unprofes-
sional. And we have no other place of abode. AYe have
put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to rough
it. And Sophy's an extraordinary manager! You'll be
surprised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I
hardly know how it's done."

" Are many of the young ladies with you? " I inquired.

" The eldest, the Beauty is here," said Traddles, in a low
confidential voice, "Caroline. And Sarah's here — the one
I mentioned to you as having something the matter with
her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the two
youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa's
here."

"Indeed!" cried I.

"Yes," said Traddles. "Now the whole set — I mean
the chambers — is only three rooms ; but Sophy arranges for
the girls in the most wonderful way, and they sleep as
comfortably as possible. Three in that room," said Trad-
dles, pointing. " Two in that. "

I could not help glancing round, in search of the accom-
modation remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles
understood me.

" Well! " said Traddles, "we are prepared to rough it, as
I said just now ; and we did improvise a bed last week,
upon the floor here. But there's a little room in the roof
—a very nice room, when you're up there — which Sophy
papered herself, to surprise me; and that's our room at

830 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

present. It's a capital little gipsy sort of place. There's
quite a view from it."

" And you are happily married at last, my dear Trad-
dies ! " said I. " How rejoiced lam!"

"Thank you, my dear Copperfield," said Traddles, as we
shook hands once more. " Yes, I am as happy as it's pos-
sible to be. There's your old friend, you see," said Trad-
dles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot and stand;
" and there's the table with the marble top! All the other
furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as
to plate, Lord bless you, we haven't so much as a tea-
spoon."

" All to be earned? " said I, cheerfully.

"Exactly so," replied Traddles, "all to be earned. Of
course we have something in the shape of teaspoons, be-
cause we stir our tea. But they're Britannia metal."

" The silver will be the brighter when it comes," said I.

" The very thing we say ! " cried Traddles. " You see,
my dear Copperfield," falling again into the low confiden-
tial tone, " after I had delivered my argument in Doe dem.
Jipes versus Wigzell, which did me great service with the
profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some
serious conversation in private with the Eeverend Horace.
I dwelt upon the fact that Sophy — who I do assure you,
Copperfield, is the dearest girl! "

" I am certain she is ! " said I.

" She is indeed! " rejoined Traddles. "But I am afraid,
I am wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Rev-
erend Horace? "

" You said that you dwelt upon the fact "

" True ! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been en-
gaged for a long period, and that Sophy, with the permis-
sion of her parents, was more than content to take me — in
short," said Traddles, with his old frank smile, "on out
present Britannia-metal footing. Very .veil. I then pro-
posed to the Eeverend Horace — who is a most excellent
clergyman, Copperfield, and ough; to be a Bishop; or at
least ought to have enough to live ipon, without pinching
himself — that if I could turn the corner, say of two hun-
dred and fifty pounds, in one year ; and could see my way
jjretty clearly to that, or something better, next year ; and
could plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then,
and in that case, Sophy and I should be united. I took

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. &31

die liberty of representing that we had been patient for a
.'good many years; and that the circumstance of Sophy's
«being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate,
with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in
ilife — don't you see? "

■"Certainly it ought not," said I.

''I am glad you think so, Copperfteld," rejoined Trad-
dles, "because, without any imputation on the Reverend
Horace, I do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are
sometimes rather selfish in such cases. Well! I also
pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful
to the family ; and that if I got on in the world, and any-
thing should happen to him — I refer to the Reverend
Horace "

u I understand," said I.

" — Or to Mrs. Crewler — it would be the utmost gratifi-
cation of my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He re-
plied in a most admirable manner, exceedingly flattering
to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs.
Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of
it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and
then into her head "

" What mounted? " I asked.

"Her grief," replied Traddles, with a serious look.
"Her feelings generally. As I mentioned on a former
occasion, she is a very superior woman, but has lost the
use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass her, usually
settles in her legs ; but on this occasion it mounted to the
chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the
whole system in a most alarming manner. However,
they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate
attention ; and we were married yesterday six weeks. You
have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I
saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every
direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn't see me before we left —
couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of her child
— but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I had
a delightful letter from her, only this morning."

"And in short, my dear friend," said I, "you feel as
blest as you deserve to feel! "

"Oh! That's your partiality!" laughed Traddles,
"But, indeed, I am in a most enviable state. I work hard,
and read Law insatiably. I get up at five every morn*

832 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

ing, and don't mind it at all. I hide the girls in the day
time, and make merry with them in the evening. And I
assure you I am quite sorry that they are going home on
Tuesday, which is the day before the first day of Michaelmas
Term. But here," said Traddles, breaking off in his con-
fidence, and speaking aloud, " are the girls ! Mr. Copper-
field, Miss Crewler — Miss Sarah — Miss Louisa — Margaret
and Lucy ! "

They were a perfect nest of roses ; they looked so whole-
some and fresh. They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline
was very handsome ; but there was a loving, cheerful, fire-
side quality in Sophy's bright looks, which was better than
that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well.
"We all sat round the tire ; while the sharp boy, who I now
divined had lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared
them away again, and produced the tea-things. After
that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer door upon
us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure and
composure beaming from her household eyes, having made
the tea, then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner
by the fire.

She had seen Agnes, she told me, while she was toasting.
" Tom " had taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip,
and there she had seen my aunt, too ; and both my aunt
and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of nothing
but me. " Tom " had never had me out of his thoughts,
she really believed, all the time I had been away. " Tom "
was the authorit}^ for everything. " Tom " was evidently
the idol of her life ; never to be shaken on his pedestal by
any commotion ; always to be believed in, and done hom-
age to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might.

The deference which both she and Traddles showed to-
wards the Beauty, pleased me very much. I don't know
that I thought it very reasonable ; but I thought it very
delightful, and essentially a part of their character. If
Traddles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons that were
still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the
Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have
got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied it
could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister.
A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious
manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly
considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 833

natural endowment. If she had been born a Qneen Bee,
and they labouring Bees, they could not have been more
satisfied of that.

But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in
these girls, and their submission of themselves to all their
whims, was the pleasantest little testimony to their own
worth I could have desired to see. If Traddlea were
addressed as "a darling," once in the course of that even-
ing ; and besought to bring something here, or carry some-
thing there, or take something up, or put something down,
or rind something, or fetch something ; he was so addressed,
by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times
in an hour. [Neither could they do anything without
Sophy. Somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy
could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune
went, and nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right.
Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in Devon-
shire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to-
be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write
before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down
in a piece of knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to
put the defaulter in the right direction. They were entire
mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on
them. How many children Sophy could have taken care
of in her time, I can't imagine; but she seemed to be
famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was
addressed to a child in the English tongue ; and she sang
dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world,
one after another (every sister issuing directions for a dif-
ferent tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so
that I was quite' fascinated. The best of all was, that, in
the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had a great ten-
derness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am
sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out
to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never
seen an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair,
rolling about in such a shower of kisses.

Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on
with pleasure, for a long time after I got back and had
wished Traddles good night. If I had beheld a thousand
roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered
Gray's Inn, they could not have brightened it half so
much. The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry
53

834 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

law-stationers and the attorneys' offices; and of the tea
and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere
of pounce and parchment, red tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars,
brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and
bills of costs ; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I
had dreamed that the Sultan's famous family had been
admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talk-
ing bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into Gray's
Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken leave of
Tradclles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house,
with a great change in my despondency about him. I
began to think he would get on, in spite of all the many
orders of chief waiters in England.

Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to
think about him at my leisure, I gradually fell from the
consideration of his happiness to tracing prospects in the
live coals, and to thinking, as they broke and changed, of
the principal vicissitudes and separations that had marked
my life. I had not seen a coal fire, since I had left Eng-
land three years ago: though many a wood fire had I
watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with
the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly fig-
ured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes.

I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly ;
and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home,
in its best sense, was for me no more. She in whom I
might have inspired a dearer love, I had taught to be my
sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants
on her tenderness : and in doing it, would never know the
love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right
that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion.
What I reaped, I had sown.

I was thinking, And had I truly disciplined my heart to
this, and could I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the
place in her home which she had calmly held in mine, —
when I found my eyes resting on a countenance that might
have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early
remembrances.

Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was
indebted in the very first chapter of this history, sat read-
ing a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner. He
was tolerably stricken in years by this time ; but, being a
mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that y

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 835

thought he looked at that moment just as he might have
looked when he sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be born.

Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago,
and I had never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing
the newspaper, with his little head on one side, and a glass
of warm sherry negus at his elbow. He was so extremely
conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologise to
the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it.

I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, " How do
you do, Mr. Chillip? "

He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from
a stranger, and replied, in his slow way, " I thank you, Sir,
you are very good. Thank you, Sir. I hope you are well."

" You don't remember me? " said I.

"Well, Sir," returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly,
and shaking his head as he surveyed me, " I have a kind
of an impression that something in your countenance is
familiar to me, Sir; but I couldn't lay my hand upon your
name, really."

" And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself," I
returned.

" Did I indeed, Sir? " said Mr. Chillip. " Is it possible
that I had the honour, Sir, of officiating when ? "

"Yes," said I.

" Dear me ! " cried Mr. Chillip. " But no doubt you are
a good deal changed since then, Sir ? "

"Probably," said I.

" Well, Sir," observed Mr. Chillip, " I hope you'll excuse
me, if I am compelled to ask the favour of your name? "

On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He
quite shook hands with me — which was a violent proceed-
ing for him, his usual course being to slide a tepid little
fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his hip, and evince
the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it.
Even now, he put his hand in his coat-pocket as soon as he
could disengage if, and seemed relieved when he had got it
safe back.

" Dear me, Sir ! " said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with
his head on one side. "And it's Mr. Copperfield, is it?
Well, Sir, I think I should have known you, if I had taken
the liberty of looking more closely at you. There's a
strong resemblance between you and your poor father.
Sir.'

836 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"I never had the happiness of seeing my father/' I
observed.

"Very true, Sir," said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone.
" And very much to be deplored it was, on all accounts !
We are not ignorant, Sir," said Mr. Chillip, slowly shak-
ing his little head again, " down in our part of the country,
of your fame. There must be great excitement here, Sir,"
said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his
forefinger. " You must find it a trying occupation, Sir ! "

" What is your part of the country now? " I asked, seat-
ing myself near him.

" I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Ed-
mund's, Sir," said Mr. Chillip. - "Mrs. Chillip coming into
a little property in that neighbourhood, under her father's
will, I bought a practice down there, in which you will be
glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is growing quite
a tall lass now, Sir," said Mr. Chillip, giving his little head
another little shake. "Her mother let down two tucks in
her frocks only last week. Such is time, you see, Sir ! "

As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips,
when he made this reflection, I proposed to him to have it
refilled, and I would keep him company with another.
"'Well, Sir," he returned, in his slow way, "it's more than
I am accustomed to; but I can't deny myself the pleasure
of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had
the honour of attending you in the measles. You came
through them charmingly, Sir ! "

I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus,
which was soon produced. "Quite an uncommon dissipa-
tion ! " said Mr. Chillip, stirring it, " but I can't resist so
extraordinary an occasion. lrou have no family, Sir? "

I shook my head.

"I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, Sir,
some time ago," said Mr. Chillip. "I heard it from your
father-in-law's sister. Very decided character there, Sir? "

"Why, yes," said I, "decided enough. Where did you
see her, Mr. Chillip? "

" Are you not aware, Sir," returned Mr. Chillip, with his
placidest smile, "that your father-in-law is again a neigh-
bour of mine?"

"No," said I.

" He is indeed, Sir ! " said Mr. Chillip. " Married a
young lady of that part, with a vptv good little property.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. $37

poor thing. — And this action of the brain now, Sir? Don't
you find it fatigue you? " said Mr. Chillip, looking at me
like an admiring Robin.

I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones.
" I was aware of his being married again. Do you attend
the family? " I asked.

"Not regularly. I have been called in," he replied.
" Strong phrenological development of the organ of firm-
ness, in Mr. Murdstone and his sister, Sir."

I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip
was emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give
his head several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim,
"Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. Copper-
field!"

''And the brother and sister are pursuing their old
course, are they? " said I.

"Well, Sir," replied Mr. Chillip, "a medical man, being
so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor
ears for anything but his profession. Still, I must say,
they are very severe, Sir ; both as to this life and the next."

" The next will be regulated without much reference to
them, I dare say," I returned : " what are they doing as to
this?"

Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and
sipped it.

" She was a charming woman, Sir ! " he observed in a
plaintive manner.

" The present Mrs. Murdstone? "

"A charming woman indeed, Sir," said Mr. Chillip; "as
amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be ! Mrs. Chillip' s
opinion is, that her spirit has been entirely broken since
her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad.
And the ladies," observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, "are
great observers, Sir."

" I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to theii
detestable mould, Heaven help her ! " said I. " And she
has been."

" Well, Sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure
you," said Mr. Chillip; "but she is quite a shadow now.
Would it be considered forward if I was to say to you,
Sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to help, the
brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her
to a state of imbecility."

838 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERxEXCE

I told hini I could easily believe it.

l" I have no hesitation in saying," said Mr. Chillip, forti
tying himself with another sip of negus, '"'between you and
me, Sir, that her mother died of it — or that tyranny,
gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone nearly im-
becile. She was a lively young woman, Sir, before mar-
riage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They
go about with her, now, more like her koepers than her
husband and sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillip" s re-
mark to me, only last week. And I assure you, Sir, the
ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great
observer ! "

"Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use
the word in such association) religious still? " I inquired.

"You anticipate, Sir," said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids get-
ting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was
indulging. "One of Mrs. Chillip's most impressive re-
marks. Mrs. Chillip," he proceeded, in the calmest and
slowest manner, "quite electrified me, by pointing out that
Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the
Divine Xature. You might have knocked me down on the
flat of my back, Sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure
you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great ob-
servers, Sir? "

" Intuitively/' £aid I, to his extreme delight.

" I am very happy to receive such support in my opin
ion, Sir," he rejoined. "It is not often that I venture to
give a non-medical opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone
delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said, — in
short, Sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip, —that the darker tyrant
he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine."

"I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right," said I.

'"Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the
meekest of little men, much encouraged, " that what such
people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad hu-
mours and arrogance. And do you know I must say, Sir,"
he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that I
don't find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the
New Testament? "

" I never found it either ! " said I.

"In the meantime, Sir," said Mr. Chillip, "they are
much disliked; and as they are very free in consigning
everybody who dislikes them to perdition, we really hav.-

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 839

a good deal of perdition going on in our neighbourhood !
However, as Mrs. Chillip says, Sir, they undergo a contin-
ual punishment ; for they are turned inward, to feed upon
their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feed-
ing. Now, Sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse
my returning to it. Don't you expose it to a good deal of
excitement, Sir? "

I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip' s
own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his atten-
tion from this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the
next half -hour, he was quite loquacious; giving me to
understand, among other pieces of information, that he was
then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional
evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state
of mind of a patient who had become deranged from exces-
sive drinking.

"And I assure you, Sir," he said, "I am extremely ner-
vous on such occasions. I could not support being what
is called Bullied, Sir. It would quite unman me. Do you
know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of
that alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr Cop-
perfield? "

I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon
of that night, early in the morning ; and that she was one
of the most tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he
would know full well if he knew her better. The mere
notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again, ap-
peared to terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile,
" Is she so, indeed, Sir ? Really? " and almost immedi-
ately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were
not quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger
under the negus ; but I should think his placid little pulse
must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than
it had done since the great night of my aunt's disappoint-
ment, when she struck at him with her bonnet.

Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight ; passed
the next day on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into
my aunt's old parlour while she was at tea (she wore spec-
tacles now) ; and was received by her, and Mr. Dick, and
dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open
arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused,
when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my
meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such

840 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

dread remembrance ; and both she and Peggotty had a great
deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and
"that murdering woman of a sister," — on whom I think no
pain or penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any
Christian or Proper Name, or any other designation.

CHAPTER LX

AGNES.

My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into
the night. How the emigrants never wrote home, other-
wise than cheerfully and hopefully; how Mr. Micawber
had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on
account of those "pecuniary liabilities," in reference to
which he had been so business-like as between man and
man; how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when
she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renun-
ciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriv-
ing tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set her
seal on'the'same great principle, by aiding and abetting the
bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her pres-
ence ; were among our topics— already more or less familiar
to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual,
was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he inces-
santly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay
his hands on, and kept King Charles the First at a respect-
ful distance by that semblance of employment ; how it was
one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was
free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint ;
and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she
could ever fully know what he was.

"And when, Trot," said my aunt, patting the back of
my hand, as we sat in our old way before the fire, "when
are you going over to Canterbury? "

" I shall get a horse, and ride over to-morrow morning,
aunt, unless you will go with me? "

"No ! " said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. " I mean
to stay where I am."

Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come

OF DAVID COPPETTFIELD. 841

through Canterbury to-day without stopping, if I had been
coming to anyone but her.

She was pleased, but answered, "Tut, Trot; my old
bones would have kept till to-morrow!" and softly patted
my hand again, as 1 sat looking thoughtfully at the fire.

Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so
near Agnes, without the revival of those regrets with which
I had so long been occupied. Softened regrets they might
be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger
life was all before me, but not the less regrets. "Oh,
Trot, " I seemed to hear- my aunt say once more ; and I
understood her better now — " Blind, blind, blind ! "

We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised
my eyes, I found that she was steadily observant of me.
Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind ; for it
seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had
been once.

" You will find her father a white-haired old man," said-
my aunt, "though a better man in all other respects — a
reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all
human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his one poor
little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must
shrink very much, before they can be measured off in that
way."

"Indeed they must," said I.

"You will find her," pursued my aunt, "as good, as
beautiful, as earnest, as disinterested, as she has always
been. If I knew higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on
her."

There was no higher praise for her ; no higher reproach
for :ne. Oh, how had I strayed so far away!

" If she trains the young girls whom she has about her,
to be like herself," said my aunt, earnest even to the
filling of her eyes with tears, " Heaven knows, her life will
be well employed ! Useful and happy, as she said that
day ! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy ! "

" Has Agnes any- " I was thinking aloud, rather

than speaking.

" Well? Hey? Any what?" said my aunt, sharply.

'• Arir lover," said I.

"A s-jore," cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant
pride. " She might have married twenty times, my dear ,
since fa** have been gone!"

842 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"No doubt/' said I. " No douot. But has she any love*
who is worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.7'

My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon
her hand. Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said :

"I suspect she has an attachment, Trot."

" A prosperous one? " said I.

" Trot," returned my aunt gravely, "I can't say. I have
no right to tell you even so much. She has never confidec
it to me, but I suspect it."

She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even
saw her tremble), that I felt now, more than ever, that she
had followed my late thoughts. I summoned all the reso-
lutions I had made, in all those many days and nights, and
all those many conflicts of my heart.

" If it should be so," I began, "and I hope it is- *

" I don't know that it is," said my aunt curtly " You
must not be ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them
secret. They are very slight, perhaps. I have no right to
speak."

'- If it should be so," I repeated, " Agnes will tell me at
her own good time. A sister to whom I have confided so
much, aunt, will not be reluctant to confide in me."

My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as sue
had turned them upon me ; and covered them thoughtfully
with her hand. By-and-by she put her other hand on my
shoulder ; and so we both sat, looking into the past, with-
out saying another word, until we parted for the night.

I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my
old school days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy,
in the hope that I was gaining a victory over myself \ even
in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again.

The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I
came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's
book to me. I went on foot to the old house, and went
away with a heart too full to enter. I returned ; and look-
ing, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room
•where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber. had
been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlour now, and
that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old house
was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been
when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admit-
ted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited
on her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 843

up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the s^eps I knew so
well), into the unchanged drawing-room. The books that
Agnes and I had read together, were on their shelves ; and
the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many a night,
stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the lit-
tle changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there,
were changed again. Everything was as it used to be, in
the happy time.

I stood in the window, and looked across the ancient
street at the opposite houses, recalling how I had watched
fehem on wet afternoons, when I first came there ; and how
I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at
any of the windows, and had followed them with my eyes
up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the
pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting
lines, and poured out of the waterspout yonder, and flowed
into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the
tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings,
at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over
their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to
me ; fraught, as then, with the smell of damp earth, and
wet leaves and briar, and the sensation of the very airs,
that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey.

The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made
me start and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as
she came towards me. She stopped and laid her hand
upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms.

"Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon
you."

"No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood! "

" Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once
again ! "

I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were
both silent. Presently we sat down, side by side; ana
her angel-face was turned upon me with the welcome I had
dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole years.

She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,
— 1 owed her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me,
that I could find no utterance for what I felt. I tried to
oless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her (as I had
often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me ;
but all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb.

With her dwu sweet tranamiiity, she calmed mj agita*

844 PERSON Ar. tflbfOK* AJSD EXPERIENCE

tion i led me back to the tinie of our parting ; spoke tc me
of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times;
spoke to me tenderly of Dora?s grave. With the unerring
instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my
memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred
within me ; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music,
sind desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could
f, when, blended with it all, was her dear self, the better
xngel of my life?

"And you, Agnes," I said, by-and-by. "Tell me of
yourself. You have hardly ever told me of your own life,
m all this lapse of time ! n

•'What should I tell?" she answered, with her radiant
smile. " Papa is well. You see us here, quiet in our own
home ; our anxieties set at rest, our home restored to us ;
and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all."

"All, Agnes?" said I.

She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face.

" Is there nothing else, Sister? " I said.

Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and
faded again. She smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought;
and shook her head.

I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at ;
for, sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that con-
fidence, I was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to
her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy, and I let it-
pass.

u You have much to do, dear Agnes? *

" With my school? " said she, looking up again, in all
her bright composure.

" Yes. It is laborious, is it not? "

"The labour is so pleasant," she returned, "that it is
scarcely gratefui in me to call it by that name."

u Nothing good is difficult to you," said I.

Her colour came and went once more ; and once more as
she bent her head, I saw the same sad smile.

"You will wait and see papa," said Agnes, cheerfully.
"and pass the day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in
your own room? We always call it yours "

I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my
aunt's, at night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully.

" I must be a prisoner for a little while," said Agnes,
'but here are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music. n

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 845

"Even the old flowers are here," said 1, looking round;
*:or the old kinds."

"I have found a pleasure," returned Agnes, smiling,
" while you have been absent, in keeping everything as it
used to be when we were children. For we were very
happy then, I think."

"Heaven knows we were! " said I.

"And every little thing that has reminded me of my
brother," said Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheer-
fully upon me, "has been a welcome companion. Even
this," showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still hang-
ing at her side, " seems to jingle a kind of old tune ! "

She smiled again, and went out at the -.. or by which she
had come.

It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with relig-
ious care. It was all that I had left myself, and it was a
treasure. If I once shook the foundations of the sacred
confidence and usage, in virtue of which it was given to>
me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. I set this
steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more
it behoved me never to forget it.

I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing
my old adversary the butcher — now a constable, with his
staff hanging up in the shop — went down to look at the
place where I had fought him; and there meditated on
Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the
idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of that time. Noth-
ing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes ; and she,
ever a star above me, was brighter and higher.

When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a
garden he had a couple of miles or so out of town, where he
now employed himself almost every day. I found him as
my aunt had described him. We sat down to dinner, with
some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow
of his handsome picture on the wall.

The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet
ground in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner
was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring
none, we went up stairs; where Agnes .and her little
charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the chil-
dren left us; and we three sat together, talking of the
bygone dajps.

"My part in them," sair» Mr Wickfield, shaking his

346 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

white head, " has much matter for regret — for deep regret)
and deep contrition, Trotwood, you well know. But 1
would not cancel it, if it were in my power. "

I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside
him.

"I should cancel with it," he pursued, "such patience
and devotion, such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must
not forget, no! even to forget myself."

"I understand you, Sir," I softly said al hold it — 1
have always held it — in veneration."

"But no one knows, not even you," he returned, "how
much she has done, how much she has undergone, how
hard she has striven. Dear Agnes ! "

She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop
him; and was very, very pale.

" Weil, well ! " he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then
saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in con-
nexion with what my aunt had told me. "Well! I have
never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has any one? "

"Never, Sir."

"It's not much — though it was much to suffer. She
married me in opposition to her father' s.wish, and he re-
nounced her. She prayed him to forgive her, before my
Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard man,
and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He
broke her heart."

Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about
his neck.

"She had an affectionate and gentle heart," he said;
" and it was broken. I knew its tender nature very well.
No one could, if I did not. She loved me dearly, but was
never happy She was always labouring, in secret, under
this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time
of his last repulse — for it Avas not the first, by many —
pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old;
and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you
first came."

He kissed Agnes on her cheek.

" My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my
mind was all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I
ani not speaking of myself, Trotwood, but of her mother,
and of her If I give you any clue to what I am, or to
what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 847

Apes is, I need not say. I have always read something
of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so I tell
it you to-night, when we three are again togethei, after
such great changes. I have told it all."

His bowed head, and her angel face and filial duty,
derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had
had before. If I had wanted anything by which to mark
this night of our reunion, I should have found it in this,

Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and
going softly to her piano, played some of the old airs to
which we had often listened in that place.

"Have you any intention of going away again? " Agnes
asked me, as I was standing by.

" What does my sister say to that? "

" I hope not."

"Then I have no such intention, Agnes."
"I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,*7
she said, mildly. "Your growing reputation and success
enlarge your power of doing good ; and if I could spare my
brother," with her eyes upon me, "perhaps the time could
not."

"What I am, you have made me, Agnes, You should
know best."

" 1 made you, Trotwood? "

" Yes ! Agnes, my dear girl ! " I said, bending over her.
"I tried to tell you, when we met to-day, something that
has been in my thoughts since Dora died. You remember,
when you came down to me in our little room — pointing
apward, Agnes? "

"Oh, Trotwood!" she returned, her eyes filled with
tears. "So loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I
«ver forget? "

"As you were then, my sister, I have often thought
since, you have ever been to me. Ever pointing upward,
Agnes ; ever leading me to something better ; ever direct-
ing me to higher things ! "

She only shook her head ; through her tears I saw the
same sad quiet smile.

" And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to
you, that there is no name for the affection of my heart.
I want you to know, yet don't know iiow to tell you, that-
all my life long I shall look up to you, and be guided by
you, as I have been through the darkness that is past

848 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, what
ever changes may come between us, I shall always look to
you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done.
You will always be my solace and resource as you have
always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see
you always before me, pointing upward! "

She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of
me, and of what I said ; although I praised her very far
beyond her worth. Then she went on softly playing, but
vithout removing her eyes from me.

"Do you know, what I have heard to-night, Agnes,"
sadd I, " strangely seems to be a part of the feeling with
which I regarded you when I saw you first — with which I
sat beside you in my rough school-days? "

" lrou knew I had no mother," she replied with a smile,
"and felt kindly towards me."

"More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had
known this story, that there was something inexplicably
gentle and softened, surrounding you ; something that might
have been sorrowful in someone else (as I can now under-
stand it was), but was not so in you."

She softly played on, looking at me still.

" Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes? *

"No!"

" Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then,
that you could be faithfully affectionate against all dis-
couragement, and never cease to be so, until you ceased to
live? — Will you laugh at such a dream? "

"Oh, no! Oh, no!"

For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face ;
but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone ; and she was
playing on, and looking at me with her own calm smile.

As i rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by
me like a restless memory, I thought of this, and feared
she was not happy, /was not happy; but, thus far, I had
faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and, thinking of her,
pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that sky
above me, where, in the mystery to come, I might yet love
her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the
strife had been within me when I loved her here

O* DAVID COPPERFIELD, 849

CHAPTER LXL

X AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS.

For a time — at all events until my book should be com
pleted, which would be the work of several months— I took
up my abode in my aunt's house at Dover; and there, sit-
ting in the window from which I had looked out at the
moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I
quietly pursued my task.

In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own
fictions only when their course should incidentally connect
itself with the progress of my story, I do not enter on the
aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and triumphs, of my
art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest
earnestness, aud bestowed upon it every energy of my soul,
I have already said. If the books I have written be of any
worth, they will supply the rest. I shall otherwise have
written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of interest to
no one.

Occasionally, I went to London ; to lose myself in the
swarm of life there, or to consult with Traddles on some
business point. He had managed for me, in my absence,
with the soundest judgment; and my worldly affairs were
prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon me an
enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had
no knowledge— chiefly about nothing, and extremely diffi-
cult to answer— I agreed with Traddles to have my name
painted up on his door. There, the devoted postman on
that beat delivered bushels of letters for me ; and there, at
intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary
of State without the salary.

Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every no^
and then, an obliging proposal from one of the numerous
outsiders always lurking about the Commons, to practise
under cover of my name (if I would take the necessary steps
remaining to make a proctor ox myself), and pay me a per-
centage on the profits. But 7. ieclined these offers ; being
already aware that there were plenty of such covert prac
54

&50 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

titioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite
bad enough, without my doing anything to make it worse.

The girls had gone home, when my name burst into
bloom on Traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all
day, as if he had never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back
room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip
of garden with a pump in it. But, there I always found
her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devon-
shire ballads when do strange foot was coming up the stairs,
and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody.

I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing
in p copy-book; and why she always shut it up when I
appeared, and hurried it into the table-drawer. But the
secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had just
come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a
paper out of his desk, and asked me what I thought of
that handwriting?

"Oh, don't, Tom!" cried Sophy, who was warming his
slippers before the fire.

"My dear," returned Tom, in a delighted state, "why
not? What do you say to that writing, Copperfield? "

"It's extraordinarily legal and formal," said 1 "I
don't think I ever saw such a stiff hand." •

"Not like a lady's hand, is it? " said Traddles.

" A lady's! " I repeated "Bricks and mortar are more
like a lady's hand! "

Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me
that it was Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and
declared he would need a copying-clerk soon, and she would
be that clerk; that she had acquired his hand from a pat-
tern; and that she could throw off — I forget how many
folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my
being told all this, and sar! that when "Tom" was made
a judge he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. Which
"Tom " denied; averring that he should always be equally
proud of it, under all circumstances.

"What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my
dear Traddles ! " said I, when she had gone away, laugh
ing.

"My dear Copperfield,*' returned Traddles, "she is, with-
out any exception, the dearest girl ! The way she manages
this place ; her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy -
and order ; her cheerfulness, Copperfield ' "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 851

" Indeed, you have reason to commend her ! " I returned.
"You are a nappy fellow. I believe you make yourselves,
and each other, two of the happiest people in the world."

•• I am sure we jure two of the happiest people," returned
T raddles. " I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul,
when I see her getting up by candle-light on these dark
mornings, busying herself in the day's arrangements, going
out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, caring
for nc weather, devising the most capital little dinners out
of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keep-
ing everything in its right place, always so neat and orna*
mental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so
late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for
me, I positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield! "

He was tender of the very slippers she had been warm-
ing, as he put them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly
upon the fender.

"I positively sometimes can't believe it," said Traddles.
"Then, our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but
they are quite wonderful! When we are at home here, of
an evening, and shut the outer door, and draw those cur-
tains—which she made — where could we be more snug?
When it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening,
the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the
glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and I show
Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on
white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could
afford it ; and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches
that are capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and pos-
sessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all
sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford
it ; and we pick Dut the spoons and forks, fish-slices, but-
ter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we
2ould both afford it ; and really we go away as if we had
got them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and
great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up
at it, and say, how would that do, if I was made a judge?
And we parcel it out — such a room for us, such rooms for
the girls, and so forth ; until we settle to our satisfaction
that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case may be.
Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre —
the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the
money — and there we thoroughly enjoy the play which

852 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking
home, perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's-
shop, or a little lobster at the fishmonger's, and bring it
here, and make a splendid supper, chatting about what we
have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if I was Lord
Chancellor, we couldn't do this! "

" You would do something, whatever you were, my dear
Traddles," thought I, "that would be pleasant and ami-
able! And by the way," I said aloud, "I suppose you
never draw any skeletons now? "

"Really," replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, "I
can't wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For,
beiug in one of the back rows of the King's Bench the
other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came into my
head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment.
And I am afraid there's a skeleton — in a wig— on the ledge
of the desk."

After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up
by looking tfith a smile at the fire, and saying, in his for-
giving way, " Old Creakle ! "

" I have a letter from that old — Rascal here, " said I.
For I never was less disposed to forgive him the way he
used to batter Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready
to forgive him himself.

"From Creakle the schoolmaster? " exclaimed Traddle?
"No!"

" Among the persons who are attracted to me in my ris-
ing fame and fortune," said I, looking over my letters, " and
who discover that they were always much attached to me,
is the self-same Creakle. He is not a schoolmaster now,
Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex magistrate."

I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he
was not so at all.

" How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex mag-
istrate?" said I.

" Oh dear me ! " replied Traddles, " it would be very
difficult to answer that question. Perhaps he voted for
somebody, or lent money to somebody, or bought some-
thing of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or
jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the
lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commis-
sion."

4 On the commission he is, at any rate," said I. "And

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 853

he writes to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in
operation, the only true system of prison discipline ; the
only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting
converts and penitents — which, you know, is by solitary
confinement. What do you say? "

"To the system? " inquired Traddles, looking grave.

" No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with
me?"

"I don't object," said Traddles.

"Then I'll write to say so. You remember (to say noth-
ing of our treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out
of doors, I suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife
and daughter? "

"Perfectly," said Traddles.

"Yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the ten-
derest of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar
of felonies," said I; "though I can't find that his tender-
ness extends to any other class of created beings."

Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all sur-
prised. I had not expected him to be, and was not sur-
prised myself; or my observation of similar practical
satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the
time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle
that evening.

On the appointed day — I think it was the next day, but
no matter— Traddles and I repaired to the prison where
Mr. Creakle was powerful. It was an immense and solid
building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help
thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would
ha^e been made in the country, if any deluded man had
proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the
erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house
of refuge for the deserving old.

In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of
the Tower of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we
were presented to our old schoolmaster ; who was one of a
group, composed of two or three of the busier sort of mag-
istrates, and some visitors they had brought. He received
me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years,
and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing
Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an
inferior degree, that he had always been Traddles' s guide,
philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor was a

854 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

great deal older, and not improved in appearance His
face was as fiery as ever ; his eyes were as small, and rather
deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which
I remembered him, was almost gone ; and the thick veins
in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at.

After some conversation among these gentlemen, from
which I might have supposed that there was nothing in the
world to be legitimately taken into account but the supreme
comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the
wide earth to be done outside prison doors, we began our
inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first
into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was
in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him
in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clockwork.
I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it oc-
curred to anybod}^, that there was a striking contrast
between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the
dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors,
labourers, the great bulk of the honest, working community ;
of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so
well. - But I learned that " the system " required high liv-
ing ; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all,
I found that on that head and on all others, " the system *
put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies.
[Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any
other system, but the system, to be considered.

As we were going through some of the magnificent pas-
sages, I inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were
supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing
and universally overriding system? I found them to be
the perfect isolation of prisoners — so that no one man in
confinement there, knew anything about another ; and the
reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, lead-
ing to sincere contrition and repentance.

Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in
their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells
were, and to have the manner of the going to chapel and
so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong probabil-
ity of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other,
and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of inter-
course. This, at the time I write, has beeD proved, I
believe, to be the case ; but, as it would have been flat
blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt

OF DAVID COPPERPIELD 855

then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I
could.

And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as
prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had
left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the
windows of the tailors' shops. I found a vast amount of
profession, varying very little in character, varying very
little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in
words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole
vineyards of inaccessible grapes ; but I found very few foxes
whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch.
Above all, I found that the most professing men were the
greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their
vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of decep-
tion (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible
extent, as their histories showed), all prompted to these
professions, and were all gratified by them.

However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our
goings to and fro, of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who
was the Favourite, and who really appeared to be a Model
Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgment until I
should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood,
was also a bright particular star ; but it was his misfortune
to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary lus-
tre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty Seven,
of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of
the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother
(whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way), that I
became quite impatient to see him.

I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account
of Twenty Seven being reserved for a concluding effect.
But, at last, we came to the door of his cell; and Mr.
Creakle, looking through a little hole in it, reported to us,
in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading a
Hymn Book.

There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see
Number Twenty Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the
little hole was blocked up, six or seven heads deep. To
remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of
conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr. Crea-
kle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty
Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done ;
and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our

856 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

amazement, in this converted Number Twenty Seven, but
Uriah Heep !

He knew us directly ; and said, as he came out — with the
old writhe —

"How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do,
Mr. Traddles? "

This recognition caused a general admiration in the
party. I rather thought that everyone was struck by his
not being proud, and taking notice of us.

"Well, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, mournfully
admiring him. "How do you find yourself to-day? "

"I am very umble, Sir! " replied Uriah Heep.

"You are always so, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle,

Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety;
"Are you quite comfortable? "

" Yes, I thank you, Sir ! " said Uriah Heep, looking in
that direction. " Far more comfortable here, than ever I
was outside. I see my follies now, Sir. TChat's what
makes me comfortable."

Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third ques-
tioner, forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme
feeling : " How do you find the beef? "

"Thank you, Sir," replied Uriah, glancing in the new
direction of this voice, " it was tougher yesterday than I
could wish; but it's my duty to bear. I have committed
follies, gentlemen," said Uriah, looking round with a meek
smile, " and I ought to bear the consequences without re-
pining. "

A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven's
celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation against
the Contractor who had given him any cause of complaint
(a note of which was immediately made by Mr. Creakle),
having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of us,
as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly
meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have
an. excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were
given to let out Twenty Eight.

I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt
a kind of resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth,
reading a good book !

"Twenty Eight," said a gentleman in spectacles, who had
not yet spoken, "you complained last week, my good fel-
low, of the cocoa. How has it been since? "

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 857

" I thank you, Sir," said Mr. Littimer, " it has been bet-
ter made. If I might take the liberty of saying so, Sir, I
don't think the milk which is boiled with it is quite gen-
uine ; but I am aware, Sir, that there is great adulteration
of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure state is
difficult to be obtained."

It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacle*
backed his Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty
Seven, for each of them took his own man in hand.

" What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight? " said the
questioner in spectacles.

"I thank you, Sir," returned Mr. Littimer; "I see my
follies now, Sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think
of the sins of my former companions, Sir ; but I trust they
may find forgiveness."

" You are quite happy yourself? " said the questioner,
nodding encouragement.

" I am much obliged to you, Sir," returned Mr. Littimer.
"Perfectly so."

" Is there anything at all on your mind, now? " said the
questioner. " If so, mention it, Twenty Eight. "

"Sir," said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, "if my
eyes have not deceived me, there is a gentleman present
who was acquainted with me in my former life. It may be
profitable to that gentleman to know, Sir, that I attribute
my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless life
in the service of young men ; and to having allowed myself
to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not the
strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warn-
ing, Sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for
his good. I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope
he may repent of all the wickedness and sin, to which he
has been a party. "

I observed that several gentlemen were shading their
eyes, each, with one hand, as if they had just come into
church.

"This does you credit, Twenty Eight," returned the
questioner. " I should have expected it of you. Is there
anything else? "

"Sir," returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his
eyebrows, but not his eyes, "there was a young woman
who fell into dissolute courses, that I endeavoured to save,
Sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, if he has

858 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that
I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself; and that I
call her to repentance — if he will be so good. "

"I ha\e no doubt, Twenty Eight," returned the ques-
tioner, " that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly
— as we all must — what you have so properly said. We
will not detain you."

"I thank you, Sir," said Mr. Littimer. "Gentlemen, I
wish you a good day, and hoping you and your families
will also see your wickedness, and amend! "

With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance
between him and Uriah; as if they were not altogether
unknown to each other, through some medium of communi-
cation ; and a murmur went round the group, as his door
shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a
beautiful case.

"Now, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, entering on a
clear stage with his man, " is there anything that anyone
can do for you? If so, mention it."

"I would umbly ask, Sir," returned Uriah, with a jerk
of his malevolent head, "for leave to write again to
mother."

" It shall certainly be granted," said Mr. Creakle.

" Thank you, Sir ! I am anxious about mother I am
afraid she ain't safe."

Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there
was a scandalised whisper of " Hush ! "

"Immortally safe, Sir," returned Uriah, writhing in the
direction of the voice. " I should wish mother to be got
into my state. I never should have been got into my pres-
ent state if I hadn't come here. I wish mother had come
here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took
up, and was brought here. "

This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction — greater sat-
isfaction, I think, than anything that had passed yet.

"Before I come here," said Uriah, stealing a look at us,
as if he would have blighted the outer world to which he
belonged, if he could, " I was given to follies ; but now I
am sensible of my follies. There's a deal of sin outside.
There's a deal of sin in mother. There's nothing but sin
everywhere — except here."

" You are quite changed? " said Mr. Creakle.

"Ob dear, yes, Sir! " cried this hopeful penitent

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 859

"You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out ? " asked
somebody else.
, "Oh de-arno, Sir!"

" Well ! " said Mr. Creakle, " this is very gratifying.
You have addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do
you wish to say anything further to him? "

" You knew me, a long time before I came here and was
changed, Mr. Copperfield," said Uriah, looking at me ; and
a more villainous look I never saw, even on his visage.
" You knew me when, in spite of my follies, I was umble
among them that was proud, and meek among them that
was violent — you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copper-
field. Once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know."

General commiseration. Several indignant glances di-
rected at me.

"But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield," said Uriah, mak-
ing his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and
awful parallel, which I shall not record. " I forgive every-
body. It would ill become me to bear malice. I freely
forgive you, and I hope you'll curb your passions in future.
I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that
sinful lot. You've been visited with affliction, and I hope
it may do you good; but you'd better have come here.
Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. too. The
best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give ail of
you gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought
here. When I think of my past follies, and my present
state, I am sure it would be best for you. I pity all who
ain't brought here ! "

He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of
approbation; and both Trad dies and I experienced a great
relief when he was locked in.

It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that 1
was fain to ask what these two men had done, to be there
at all. That appeared to be the last thing about which
they had anything to say. I addressed myself to one of
the two warders, who, I suspected, from certain latent in-
dications in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir
was worth.

" Do you know," said I, as we walked along the passage,
"what felony was Number Twenty Seven's last 'folly '? "

The answer was that it was a Bank case.

" A fraud on the Bank of England? " I asked.

560 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

^Yes, Sir. Fraud, forgeiy, and conspiracy. He and
some others. He set the others on. It was a deep plot
for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life Twenty
Seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very
nearly kept himself safe ; but not quite. The Bank was
just able to put salt upon his tail — and only just."

"Do you know Twenty Eight's offence? "

"Twenty Eight," returned my informant, speaking
throughout in a low tone, and looking over his shoulder
as we walked along the passage, to guard himself from
being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to these
Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; "Twenty Eight
(also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young mas-
ter of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money
and valuables, the night before they were going abroad.
I particularly recollect his case, from his being took bv a
dwarf."

"A what?"

" A little woman. I have forgot her name."

" Not Mowcher? "

"That's it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to
America in a flaxen wig and whiskers, and such a complete
disguise as never you see in all your born days ; wnen the
little woman, being in Southampton, met him walking
along the street — picked him out with her sharp eye in a
moment — ran betwixt his legs to upset him — and held on
to him like grim Death."

" Excellent Miss Mowcher ! " cried 1

" You'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a
chair in the witness-box at his trial, as I did," said my
friend. " He cut her face right open, and pounded her in
the most brutal manner, when she took him ; but she never
loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so tight
to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take 'em
x>th together. She gave her evidence in the gamest way
and was highly complimented by the Bench, and cheered
right home to her lodgings. She said in Court that she'd
have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew
concerning him), if he had been Samson. And it's n y
belief she would ! "

It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcxier
for it.

We had now seen all there was to see. It would have

OF DAVID COPPERFrELD 861

ven in vain to represent to such a man as the worshipfu'
Mr. Creakle, that Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight were
perfectly consistent and unchanged ; that exactly what they
were then, they had always been; that the hypocritical
knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profes-
.-i'.Li in such a place; that they knew its market-value at
as well as we did, in the immediate service it would
do them when they were expatriated; in a word, that it
was a rotten, hollow, painfully suggestive piece of business
altogether. We left them to their system and themselves,
and went home wondering.

'"Perhaps it's a good thing, Traddles," said L, "to have
an unsound Hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden
to death."

"I hope so." replied Traddles

CHAPTEK LXU

A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY

The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been
at home above two months. I had seen Agnes frequently.
However loud the general voice might be in giving me
encouragement, and however fervent the emotions and
endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest
word of praise as I heard nothing else.

At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, [ rode over
there, and passed the evening. I usually rode back at
night; for the old unhappy sense was always hovering
about me now — most sorrowfully when I left her — and I
was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the
past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore
away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those
rides; reviving, as I went, the thoughts that had occu-
pied me in my long absence.

Or, if I were to say rather that 1 listened to the echoes
of those thoughts. I should better express the truth. They
spoke to me from afar off. I had put them at a distance,
and accepted my inevitable place. When I read to Agnes
what I wrote ; when I saw her listening face ; moved her
to smiles or tears; and heard iaei cordial voice so earnest

862 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which
I lived ; I thought what a fate mine might have been — but
only thought so, as I had thought after I was married to
Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be.

My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if
I disquieted, I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and
could never restore; my matured assurance that I, who
had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had
impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and
must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned.
But I loved her: and now it even became some consola-
tion to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might
blamelessly avow it ; when all this should be over ; when I
could say " Agnes, so it was when I came home ; and now
I am old, and I never have loved since ! "

She did not once show me any change in herself. What
she always had been to me, she still was; wholly unal-
tered.

Between my aunt and me there had been something, in
this connexion, since the night of my return, which I can
not call a restraint, or an avoidance of the subject, so much
as an implied understanding that we thought of it together,
but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, accord-
ing to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we
often fell into this train ; as naturally, and as consciously
to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But we
preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had
read, or partly read, my thoughts that night ; and that she
fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct ex-
pression.

This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having re
posed no new confidence in me, a doubt that had several
times arisen in my mind —whether she could have that per-
ception of the true state of my breast, which restrained her
with the apprehension of giving me pain — began to oppress
me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing;
my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled ; and every poor
action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved
to set this right beyond all doubt;— if such a barrier were
between us, to break it down at once with a determined
band.

It was — what lasting reason nave I to remember it! —
% cold, harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 863

hours before ; and it lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the
ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the wind blew
ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweep-
ing over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland ,
then inaccessible to any human foot : and had been specu-
lating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a
deserted ocean

"Biding to-day, Trot?" said my aunt, putting her head
in at the door.

" Yes," said I, " I am going over to Canterbury. It's a
good day for a ride."

"I hope your horse may think so too," said my aunt;
"but at present he is holding down his head and his ears,
standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable
preferable,"

My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the for-
bidden ground, but had not at all relented toward the
donkeys.

" He will be fresh enough, presently ! " said I.

"The ride will do his master good, at all events," ob-
served my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. " Ah,
child, you pass a good many hours here ! I never thought,
when I used to read books, what work it was to write
them."

" It's work enough to read them, sometimes," I returned.
"As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt."

" Ah ! I see ! " said my aunt. " Ambition, love of appro-
bation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go
along with you! "

"Do you know anything more," said I, standing com-
posedly before her — she had patted me on the shoulder,
and sat down in my chair, " of that attachment of Agnes? "

She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:

"I think I do, Trot."

'* Aie you confirmed in your impression ? " I inquired.

"I think I am, Trot."

She looked so steadfastly at me : with a kind of doubt,
or pity, or suspense in her affection : that I summoned the
stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful
face

"And what is more, lrot " said my aunt

" Yes ! "

" I think Agnes is going to be married "

864 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

" God bless her! " said I, cheerfully.

"God bless her!" said iny aunt, "and her husband
too!"

I echoed it, parted from my aunt, went lightly down
stairs, mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason
than before to do what i had resolved to do.

How well I recollect the wintry ride ! The frozen par-
ticles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind,
and borne across my face; the hard clatter of the horse's
hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff -tilled soil;
the snow-drift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the
breeze ruffled it ; the smoking team with the waggon of old
hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their
bells musically ; the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-
land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on
a huge slate !

I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their
own homes now, and she was alone by the fire, reading.
She put down her book on seeing me come in ; and having
welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and sat in one
of the old-fashioned windows.

I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we • talked of
what I was doing, and when it would be done, and of the
progress I had made since my last visit. Agnes was very
cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I should soon
become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects.

"So I make the most of the present time, you see," said
Agnes, " and talk to you while I may."

As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work,
she raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking
at her.

" You are thoughtful to-day, Trotwood! "

f Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell
you."

She pu£ aside her work, as she was used to do when we
were seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole
attention.

" My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you? "

"No! " she answered, with a look of astonishment.

u Do vou doubt my being what I always have been to
you?"

" No ' " she answered, as before

" Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I eame

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. $65

home, what a debt of gratitude I owe*} you, dearest Agnes,
and how fervently I felt towards you ! "

"I remember it," she said, gently, "very well."
" You have a secret," said I. " Let me share it, Agnes."
She cast down her eyes, and trembled.
"1 could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard—
but from other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange
— that there is some one upon whom you have bestowed the
treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of what con-
3erns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as
you say you can, and as I know you may, let me be your
friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others ! "

With an appealing, almost a reproachful glance, she rose
from the window ; and hurrying across the room as if with-
out knowing where, put her hands before her face, and
burst into such tears as smote me to the heart.

And yet they awakened something in me, bringing prom-
ise to my heart. Without my knowing why, these tears
allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so
fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope
than fear or sorrow.

" Agnes ! Sister ! Dearest ! What have I done ! "
" Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not
myself. I will speak to you by-and-by — another time. I
will write to you. Don't speak to me now. Don't ! don't ! "
I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had
spoken to her on that former night, of her affection need-
ing no return. It seemed a very world that I must search
through in a moment.

•' Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I
have been the cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than
anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your
anh.appine.ss. If you are in need of help or counsel, let
me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on
your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live
now, Agnes, if it is not for you! "

" Oh, spare me ! I am not myself I Another time ! " was
all I could distinguish.

Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or,
having once a clue to hope, was there something opening
to me that I had not dared to think of?

"I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For
Heaven's sake, Agn^s, let us not mistake each other after
55

866 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

all these years, and all that has come and gone with thein*
I mnst speak plainly. If you have any lingering thought
that I could envy the happiness you will confer; that I
could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own
choosing ; that I could not, from my removed place, be a
contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don't de
serve it ! I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not
taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what
I feel for you. "

She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale
face towards me, and saifl in a low voice, broken here and
there, but very clear :

" I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood- -
which, indeed, I do not doubt — to tell you, you are mis-
taken. I can do no more. If I have sometimes, in the
course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have come
to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has
passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it
has been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is — no
new one; and is — not what you suppose. I cannot reveal
it, or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain
mine."

" Agnes ! Stay ! A moment ! "

She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my
arm about her waist. " In the course of years ! " " It is
not a new one ! " New thoughts and hopes were whirling
through my mind, and all the colours of my life were
changing.

"Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour —
whom I so devotedly love ! When I came here to-day, I
thought that nothing could have wrested this confession
from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all
our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed
any new-born hope that I may ever call you something
more than Sister, widely different from Sister! "

Her tears fell fast ; but they were not like those she had
lately shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them

" Agnes ! Ever my guide, and best support ! Lf you had
been more mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we
grew up here together, I think my heedless fancy never
would have wandered from you. But you were so much
better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and
disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 867

upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting
for the time the first and greater one of loving you as
I do!"

Still weeping, but not sadly — joyfully! And clasped in
my arms as she had never been, as I had thought she never
was to be !

" When I loved Dora — fondly, Agnes, as you know n

"Yes!" she cried, earnestly. "I am glad to know
it!"

"When I loved her — even then, my love would have
been incomplete, without your sympathy. I had it, and
it was perfected. And when I lost her, Agnes, what
should I have been without you, still! "

Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling
hand upon my shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through
her tears, on mine !

'' I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away,
loving yon. I returned home, loving you!"

And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had,
and the conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind
before her, truly and entirely. I tried to show her, how I
had hoped I had come into the better knowledge of myself
and of her ; how I had resigned myself to what that better
knowledge brought ; and how I had come there, even that
day, in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said)
that she could take me for her husband, she could do so,
on no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my love
for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what
it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And 0,
Agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the
spirit of my child-wife looked upon me, saying it was well ;
and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections of
the Blossom that had withered in its bloom !

" I am so blest, Trotwood — my heart is so overcharged —
but there is one thing I must; say."

"Dearest, what?"

She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked
calmly in my face.

" Do you know, yet, what it is? "

"1 am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my
dear."

" I have loved you all my life J r

868 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

Oh, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not
for the trials (hers so much the greater), through which we
had come to be thus, but for the rapture of being thus,
never to be divided more !

We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together ;
and the blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by
the frosty air. The early stars began to shine while we
were lingering on, and looking up to them we thanked our
God for having guided us to this tranquillity.

We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at
night, when the moon was shining ; Agnes with her quiet
eyes raised up to it ; I following her glance. Long miles
of road then opened out before my mind; and, toiling on, t
saw a ragged wayworn boy forsaken and neglected, who
should come to call even the heart now beating against
mine, his own.

It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared
before my aunt. She was up in my study, Peggotty said :
which it was her pride to keep in readiness and order for
me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by the fire.

" Goodness me ! " said my aunt, peering through the
dusk, "who's this you're bringing home?"

"Agnes," said I.

As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was
not a little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at
me, when I said " Agnes ; " but seeing that I looked as
usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, and rubbed
her nose with them.

She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were
soon in the lighted parlour down stairs, at dinner. My
aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice, to take another
look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed,
and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the discomfiture
of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom.

"By-the-by, aunt,'#' said I, after dinner; "I have been
speaking to Agnes about what you told me/'

"Then, Trot," said my aunt, turning scarlet, "you did
wrong, and broke your promise."

"You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you
won't be, when you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in
any attachment"

" Stuff and nonsense ! " said my aunt

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 869

As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best
way was to cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my
arm to the back of her chair, and w°s both leaned over her.
My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through
her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the
first and only time in all my knowledge of her.

The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt
was restored, she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly
old creature, hugged her with all her might. After that,
she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured, but a
good deal surprised) ; and after that, told them why
Then, we were ail happy together.

I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short
conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had
really mistaken the state of my mind. It was quite enough,
she said, that she had told me Agnes was going to be mar-
ried ; and that I now knew better than any one how true
it was.

"We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and
Sophy, and Doctor .and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests
at our quiet wedding. We left them full of joy ; and drove
away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the source
of every worthy aspiration I had ever had ; the centre of
myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife ; my love
of whom was founded on a rock !

" Dearest husband ! " said Agnes " Now that 1 may call
you by that name, I have one thing more to tell you."

"Let me hear it, love."

" It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent
you for me."

" She did."

"She told me that she left me something. Can yon
think what it was? "

I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long
loved me, closer to my side.

" She told me that she made a last request to me, and
left me a last charge."

" And it was "

" That only I would occupy this vacant place."

And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept \ ana
I wept with her, though we were so happy.

«7U PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER LXIIi

A VISITOR

What 1 have purposed to record is nearly finished; but
there is yet an incident conspicuous in my memory, on
which it often rests with delight, and without which one
thread in the web I have spun, would have a ravelled end.

I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy
was perfect, I had been married ten happy years. Agnes
and I were sitting by the fire, in our house in London, one
night in spring, and three of our children were playing in
the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see
me.

He had been asked if he came on business, and had
answered No ; he had come for the pleasure of seeing me,
and had come a long way. He was an old man, my ser-
vant said, and looked like a farmer.

As this sounded mysterious to the children, and more-
over was like the beginning of a favourite story Agnes used
to tell them, introductory to the arrival of a wicked old
Fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, it produced some
commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother's
lap to be out of harm's way, and little Agnes (our eldest
child) left her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust
out her little heap of golden curls from between the win-
dow-curtains, to see what happened next.

" Let him come in here ! n said I.

There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he
entered, a hale, grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, at-
tracted by his looks, had run to bring him in, and I had
not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, starting up,
cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was
Mr. Peggotty!

It was Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy,
hearty, strong old age. When our first emotion was over,
and he sat before the fire with the children on his knees,
and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, to me, as vig-
orous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever
I had seen.

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 871

"Mas'r Davy," said he. And the old name in the old
tone fell so naturally on my ear! "Mas'r Davy, 'tis a
joyful hour as T see you, once more, 'long with your own
trew wife ! "

"A joyful hour indeed, old friend! " cried 1

"And these heer pretty ones," said Mr. Peggotty. "To
iook at these heer flowers! Why, Mas'r Davy, you was
buc the heigh th of the littlest of these when I first see you !
When Em'ly warn't no bigger, and our poor lad were but
a lad!"

" Time has changed me more than it has changed you
since then," said I. " But let these dear rogues go to bed \
and as no house in England but this must hold you, tell me
where to send for your luggage (is the old black bag among
it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass
of Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten
years ! "

" Are you alone? n asked Agnes.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, kissing her hand, "quite alone."

We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him
welcome enough ; and as I began to listen to his old famil-
iar voice, I could have fancied he was still pursuing his
long journey in search of his darling niece.

" It's a mort of water," said Mr Peggotty, "fur to come
across, and on'y stay a matter of fower weeks But water
('specially when 'tis salt) comes nat'rai to me; and friends
is dear, and I am heer — Which is verse," said Mr Peg-
gotty, surprised to find it out, " though I hadn't such in-
tentions. "

" Are you going back those many thousand miles, so
soon? " asked Agnes

"Yes, ma'am," he returned "I giv the promise to
Em'ly, afore I come away You see, T doen't grow
younger as the years comes round, and if T hadn't sailed
as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never have done't. And
it's alius been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas'r
Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded
happiness, afore I got to be too old. "

He looked at us, as if he -could never feast his eyes on
us sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered
locks of his grey hair, that he might see ns better.

'And now tell us," said I. "everything relating to you*
fortunes "

372 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

"Our fortuns, Bfas'r Davy," he rejoined, "is soon told.
We haven't fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We've
alius thrived. We've worked as we ought to't, and maybe
we lived a lettle hard at first or so, but we have alius thrived.
What with sheep-farming, and what with stock-farming,
and what with one thing and what with t'other, we are as
well to do, as well could be. Theer's been kiender a bless-
ing fell upon us," said. Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclin-
ing his head, "and we've done nowt but prosper. That is.
in the long run. If not yesterday, why then to-day. If
not to-day, why then to-morrow."

" And Emily? " said Agnes and I, both together.

"Em'ly," said he, "arter you left her, ma'am — and 1
never heerd her saying of her prayers at night, t'other side
the canvas screen, when we was settled in the Bush, but
what I heerd your name — and arter she and. me lost sight
of Mas'r Davy, that theer shining sundown -was that low,
at first, that, if she nad know'd then what Mas'r Davy kep
from us so kind and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she'd have
drooped away. But theer was some poor folks aboard as
had illness among 'em, and she took care of them; and
there was the children in oar company, and she took care
of them; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good,
and that helped her."

" When did she first hear of it? " I asked.

"I kep it from her arter I heerd on't," said Mr. Peg-
gotty, " going on nigh a year. We was living then in a
solitary place, but among the beautifullest trees, and with
the roses a covering our Beein' to the roof. Theer come
along one day, when I was out a working on the land, a
traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England
(I doen't rightly mind which), and of course we took him
in, and giv him to eat and drink, and made him welcome
We all do that, all the colony over. He'd got an old news
paper with him, and some other account in print of the
storm That's how she know'd it. When I come home
at night, I found she know'd it."

He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the
gravity I so well remembered overspread his face

"Did it change her much? " we asked

"Ay, for a good long time," he said, shaking his head;
" if not to this present hour. But I think the solitoode
done her good. And she had a deal to mind in the way of

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 873

poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come through.
I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if you could see my
Em'ly now, Mas'r Davy, whether you'd know her!"

" Is she so altered? " I inquired.

" I doen't know. I see her ev'ry day, and doen't know;
but, odd-times, I have thowt so. A slight figure," said
Mr. Peggotty, looking at the fire, "kiender worn; soft,
sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty head, lean-
ing a little down ; a quiet voice and way — timid a' most.
That's Em'ly!"

We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the
fire,

"Some thinks," he said, "'as her affection was ill-be-
stowed; some, as her marriage was broke off by death.
No one knows how 'tis. She might have married weii,
a mort of times, ' But, uncle,' she says to me, ' that's gone
for ever.' Cheerful along with me ; retired when others is
by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur
to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds
a young girl's wedding (and she's done a many, but has
never seen one) ; fondly loving of her uncle ; patient ; liked
by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble.
That's Em'ly!"

He drew his hand across his face, and with a half -sup-
pressed sigh looked up from the fire.

" Is Martha with you yet? " I asked.

"Martha," he replied, "got married, Mas'r Davy, in the
second year. A young man, a farm-labourer, as come by
us on his way to market with his mas'r's drays — a journey
of over five hundred mile, theer and back — made offers fur
to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and
then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke
to me fur to tell him her trew story. I did. They was
married, and they live fower hundred mile away from any
roices but their own and the singing birds."

" Mrs. Gummidge? " I suggested.

It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty sud-
denly burst into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands
up and down his legs, as he had been accustomed to do
when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked boat.

u Would you believe it! " he said. "Why, someun even
made offers fur to marry her! If a ship's cook that was
turning settler, Mas'r Davy, didn't make offers fur to

874 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

marry Missis Guramidge, I'm Gormed — and I can't say no
fairer than that ! "

I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the
part of Mr, Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she
could not leave off laughing ; and the more she laughed the
more she made me laugh, and the greater Mr. Peggotty' 8
ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs.

" And what did Mrs. Gummidge say? " / asked, when I
was grave enough.

"If you'll believe me," returned Mr. Peggotty, "Missis
Gummidge, 'stead of saying ' thank you, I'm much obleeged
to you, I ain't a going fur to change my condition at my
time of life, ' up' d with a bucket as was standing by, and
laid it over that theer ship's cook's head till he sung out
fur help, and I went in and reskied of him. "

Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and
Agnes and I both kept him company.

"But I must say this, for the good creetur," he resumed,
wiping his face when we were quite exhausted; "she has
been all she said she'd be to us, and more. She's the will-
ingest, the trewest, the honestest-helping woman, Mas'r
Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of life. I have never
known her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, not
even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to
it. And thinking of the old 'un is a thing she never done,
I do assure you, since she left England ! "

"Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber," said I. "He has
paid off every obligation he incurred here — even to Trad-
dies' s bill, you remember, my dear Agnes — and therefore
we may take it for granted that he is doing well. But
what is the latest news of him? "

Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-
pocket, and produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which
he took out, with much care, a little odd-looking news*
paper.

"You are to unnerstan', Mas'r Davy," said he ' as we
have left the Bush now, being so well to do ; and have gone
right away round to Port Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer' s
what we call a town."

"Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you," said I.

"Bless you, yes," said Mr. Peggotty, "and turned to
with a will. I never wish to meet a better gen'l'man for
turning to, with a will. I've seen that +hee:» bald head of

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD 875

his, a perspiring in the sun, Mas'r Davy, till I a'inost
thowt it would have melted away And now he's a mag-
istrate."

" A magistrate, eh? " said I

Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the news-
paper, where I read aloud a« follows, from the " Port Mid-
dlebay Times : "

' ^W^ The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-col-
Miist and townsman, YVilktxs Micawber, Esquire, Port
Middlebay District Magistrate, came off yesterday in the
large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to suffocation.
It is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons must
have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclu-
sive of the company in the passage and on the stairs. The
beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of Port Middlebay flocked
to do honour to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly tal-
ented, and so widely popular. Doctor Mell (of Colonial
Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided,
and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the
removal of the cloth, and the singing of Non Xobis (beau-
tifully executed, and in which we were at no loss to distin-
guish the bell-like notes of that gifted amateur, TVilkixs
Micawber, Esquire, Junior), the usual loyal and patriotic
toasts were severally given and rapturously received. D? .
Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed ' Our
distinguished Guest, the ornament of our town. May he
never leave us but to better himself, and may his success
among us be such as to render his bettering himself impos-
sible ! ' The cheering with which the toast was received
defies description. Again and again it rose and fell, liko
the waves of ocean. At length all was hushed, and Wil-
kixs Micawber, Esquire, presented himself to return
thanks. Far be it from us, in the present comparatively
imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, to
endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through
the smoothly -flowing periods of his polished and highly-
ornate address! Suffice it to observe, that it was a master
piece of eloquence ; and that those passages in which ho
more particularly traced his own successful career to ite
source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from
the shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they
were unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest

876 PERSONAL HISTORY aISD EXPERIENCE

eye present. The remaining toasts were Doctor Mell;
Mrs. Micawber (who gracefully bowed her acknowledg-
ments from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was
elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the grati-
fying scene) ; Mrs. Ridger Begs (late Miss Micawber) :
Mrs. Mell; Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior (who
convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that he
found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but
■vould do so, with their permission, in a song) ; Mrs
Micawber' s Family (well known, it is needless to remark
in the mother-country), &c, &c, &c. At the conclusion of
the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic
for dancing. Among the votaries of Terpsichore, who
disported themselves until Sol gave warning for departure,
Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior, and the lovely and
accomplished Miss Helena, fourth daughter of Doctor Mell,
were particularly remarkable. "

I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased
to have discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr.
Mell, formerly poor pinched usher to my Middlesex magis-
trate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing to another part of the
paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read thus :—

"TO DAVID COPPEEFIELD, ESQUIRE,

"the eminent author.
u My Dear Sir,

" Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocu-
larly perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imagina-
tions of a considerable portion of the civilised world.

"But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of
circumstances over which I have had no control) from the
personal society of the friend and companion of my youth,
1 have not been unmindful of his soaring flight. Nor have
I been debarred,

1 Though seas between us braid ha' roared,'

(Burns) from participating in the intellectual feasts he h?s
spread before us.

" I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this
place of an individual whom we mutually respect and
esteem, without, my dear Sir, taking this public opportu

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 877

nity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, I may under-
take to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of
Port Middlebay, for the gratification of which you are
the ministering agent.

u Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you
are not unappreciated. Though ' remote,' we are neither
; unfriended/ ' melancholy,' nor (I may add) * slow.' Go
on, my dear Sir, in your Eagle course ! The Inhabitants
of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch it, with
delight, with entertainment, with instruction !

" Among the eyes elevated towards you from this por-
tion of the globe, will ever be found, while it has light and
life,

"The

"Eye

M Appertaining to

" WlLKIXS MlCAWBER,

"Magistrate."

I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the
newspaper, that Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed
correspondent of that journal. There was another letter
from him in the same paper, touching a bridge ; there was
an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him,
to be shortly republished, in a neat volume, " with consid-
erable additions;" and, unless I am very much mistaken,
the Leading Article was his also.

We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other even-
ings while Mr. Peggotty remained with us. He lived with
us during the whole term of his stay, — which, I think, was
something less than a month, — and his sister and my aunt
came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him
aboard ship, when he sailed ; and we shall never part from
him more, on earth.

But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see
a little tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the mem-
ory of Ham. While I was copying the plain inscription
for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and gather a tuft
of grass from the grave, and a little earth.

''For Em'ly," he said, as he put it in his breast. "I
promised, Mas'r Davy."

378 PERSONAL HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER LXIV.

A LAST RETROSPECT.

And now my written story ends. I look back, once
more — for the last time — before I close these leaves.

I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying aloDg
the road of life. I see our children and our friends around
us; and I hear the roar of many voices, not indifferent to
me as I travel on.

What faces are the most distinct tc me in the fleeting
crowd? Lo, these ; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts
th(; question !

Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman
of four-score years and more, but upright yet, and a steady
walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather.

Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old
nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needlework
at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to
it without a bit of wax-candle, a yard measure in a little
house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul's upon
the lid.

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard ana red in
my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't
peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now ; and
her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood
in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still) ; but her
rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket
nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least
child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I
think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely
walk. My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now.
She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood ; and
Dora fthe next in order) says she spoils her.

There is something bulky in Peggotty' s pocket. It is
nothing smaller than the Crocodile-Book, which is in
rather a dilppidated condition by this time, with divers of
the leaves torn and stitched across, bat which Peggotty
exhibits to the children as ° precious relic. I find it very

OP DAVID COPPERFIELD. 879

curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from
the crocodile stories ; and to be reminded by it of my old
acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield.

Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old
man making giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with
a delight for which there are no words. He greets me rap-
turously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, " Trot-
wood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the Memo-
rial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt's
the most extraordinary woman in the world, Sir! "

Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and
showing me a countenance in which there are some traces
of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a queru-
lous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? She is in
a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered
woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what
they say.

"Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name."

Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, *'Mr. Copper-
field/'

"lam glad to see you, Sir. I am sorry to observe you
are in mourning. I hope Time will be good to you ! "

Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in
mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her.

'• You have seen my son, Sir," says the elderly lady.
** A re you reconciled? "

Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her fore-
head, and moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice,
"Rosa, come to me. He is dead! " Rosa, kneeling at her
feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her; now
fiercely telling her, " I loved him better than you ever did ! "
— now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child.
Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they
wear their time away, from year to yeare

What ship comes sailing home from India, and what
English lady is this, married to a growling old Scotch
Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can this be Julia
Mills?

Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black
man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver,
and a copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright hand-
kerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-
room. But Julia keeps no man m these days; nevei

880 PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

sings Affection's Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old
Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned
hide. Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks
and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the Desert
of Sahara.

Or perhaps this is the Desert of Sahara! For, though
Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sump-
tuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her.;
uothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia
calls " society," I see ; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his
Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and
speaking to me, of the Doctor, as " so charmingly antique."
But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and
ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indiffer-
ence to everything that can advance or can retard mankind,
I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of
Sahara, and had better find the way out.

And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at
his Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy
in his home and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a consid-
erably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as
in days of yore !

Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy
aspect, and his hair (where he is not bald) made more
rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his lawyer's
wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old Traddles.
His table is covered with thick piles of papers ; and I say
as I look around me :

" If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would
have enough to do ! "

" You may say that, my dear Copperfield ! But those
were capital days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they

ELOfc? "

" When she told you you would be a Judge? But it was
not the town talk then ! "

"At all events," says Traddles, "if I ever am one "

" Why, you know you will be."

"'Well, my dear Copperfield, when I am one, I shall tell
the story, as I said I would."

We walk away, arm in arm. 1 am going to have a
family dinner with Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and,
on our road, Traddles discourses to me of the good tortune
he has enjoyed.

OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. 881

. really have been able, my dear Copperfield, tc dc all
I had most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace
promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a
year; theie are our two boys receiving the very best educa-
te m, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars and
fellows ; there are three of the girls married very coin-
iy; there are three more living with us; there are
three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace sine*
Mrs. Crewler's decease; and all of them happy."

k' Except " I suggest.

' Except the Beauty," says Traddles. "Yes. It wa,
very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond.
But there was a certain dash and glare about him that
caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our
house, and got r'd of him, we must cheer her up again."

Traddles's house is one of the very houses— or it easily
may have been— which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in
their evening walks. It is a large house; but Traddles
keep- his papers in his dressing-room, and his boots with
his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into
upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty
and the girls. There is no room to spare in the house ; for
more of " the girls " are here, and always are here, by some
accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when
we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door,
and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of
breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty,
a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy's birth-
day, are the three married girls with their three husbands,
and one of the husband's brothers, and another husband's
cousin, and another husband's sister, who appears to m<3
to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same
simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of
the large table like a Patriarch ; and Sophy beams upon
him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly
not glittering with Britannia metal.

And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to lin-
ger yet, these faces fade away. But, one face, shining
on me ''ike a heavenly light by which I see all other ob-
jects, v.- -obove them and beyond them all. And that re-
mains.

I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity,
beside me. My lamp burns low. and I have written far
56

882 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

into the night; but the dear presence, without which 1
were nothing, bears me company.

0 Agnes, 0 my soul, so may thy face be by me when I
close my life indeed ; so may I, when realities are melting
from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find
thee near me, pointing upward !

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